Mirage
by Vyscaria
Summary: Mustang's Restoration Act challenges Scar and Miles to rebuild Ishval, but they hadn't counted on Kimblee coming along. What's more, reviving Ishval isn't an easy task, and the Ishvalans are keeping their own secrets. Between a witch, a lion, and a baker, the future of New Ishval dances as a mirage on the horizon. Vivid worldbuilding, OCs, AU in which Kimblee survives Promised Day.
1. Chapter 1

**Scar**

In the evenings, the man known as Scar would lose himself in the overwhelming disarray of a stationary life. Having lived years as a nomad, often wanted by the law, it took several weeks simply to become comfortable with the idea of returning to the same rooms night after night.

It had been two months now since he'd joined with Major Miles and Colonel Roy Mustang in the Ishvalan Restoration. The exhausting parade of speeches and decrees had long come and gone, and Scar simply watched on with a sort of fatigued detachment. After all that had occurred- the homunculi, the realization that his brother's research had saved millions, the aftermath of the bloody civil war that peppered the streets of Central with bodies… that smell of crushed concrete, blood, and carbon had brought him back to terrible times. He couldn't even step out of the quarters they'd assigned him for much of the first two weeks while Mustang's men and the remainder of the Amestrian military force mobilized to clean up the streets and restore as much basic infrastructure as they could. _There had been so much dead…_

It hadn't really been his choice to join forces with the Amestrian state. It had merely been the only thing to do. Only the power of the military could restore the damage they'd dealt, though Scar had no illusions that Ishvalan people would ever fully recover. Yet Miles had said he'd _needed_ him. The man even asked him his name. Major Miles was something of an enigma; he was only one-fourth Ishvalan by blood, and he never felt the pain their people felt during that terrible extermination. He bore the same red eyes and dark skin that Scar and his ancestors were born with, but something in his eyes was different; foreign. The way he moved was with military precision, his elbows always straight and his steps sure and urgent. He spoke choppily and with power, like every word was an order- such was required of an officer. He didn't move with the poetry of the Ishvalan people. When he smiled, he lacked a certain easiness in the mouth.

He missed his people. The Ishvalans in the slums eked out a meagre existence that could not be compared to how they'd lived in the glory days of old Ishval. Scar missed the soft melody of an oud, the lifting flitter of a shepherd boy's flute, and the smoky voices of the wild desert nomads that came into Kanda to trade their camelhair blankets, precious metals, and pilfered jewels. He missed the look of his brother, Evram, pacing about the house and ruining everything he touched with his ink stained fingertips. In the evenings, Scar stirred perfect proportions of gum Arabic, soot, honey, and water into the fine black ink that their family used for writing.

 _And the women!_ Though Scar embarked on the path of a priest, _avum-Ishvala_ , at twelve years old, he never stopped appreciating beauty when he saw it. He loved watching the Gunjan women dance, slamming their feet on Ishvala's earth and ringing out a song with their heavy metal ankle bracelets. The wealthy women of Kanda lined their eyes with powdered lapis and amethyst, while other women like Scar's mother simply rubbed mutton fat into their cheeks in the dry season.

None of these things existed in the slums. There were no huge feasts, festivities, and raucous dancing. The people survived on what food they could find, and there were no more date cakes, honeyed pistachios, or endless bowls of curried beans that Scar remembered as the flavors of his childhood. He cringed to think that children were born in the slums and lived their life as an Ishvalan without ever having seen Gunjan girls dance or eaten fried flatbread sprinkled with cumin and rock salt.

Scar often thought of these things when he saw the other man during the day, marching about doing this and that, chased by his subordinates and chasing his superiors. He'd derive a certain sort of pleasure, thinking that _no, he isn't truly like us,_ and then he'd immediately recoil in disgust. _We are no more._ There was no more poetry in Scar, either. His life had become a ceaseless march, one towards destruction. And now that all was destroyed, now that all was dust and new birth was possible, he found himself utterly lost.

The Ishvalan Revival was to take place immediately after the re-consolidation of the chain of command in Central, which Scar was told could take several months of administration and propaganda to establish. Fuhrer Grumman's takeover of Bradley's former position was smooth and unopposed, having hid his tracks carefully during Mustang's coup. His position was fairly stable, but some members of the former upper echelon that remained still worked to rally their loyalties. As it was, the Amestrian public was not fully convinced that the Grumman administration would be any better than that under Bradley, and there was the added problem of having to fabricate a complex lie to hide the reality of what had occurred. The general public was not ready for stories of homunculi, immortal men, and wholesale corruption over centuries of state-sanctioned bloodshed. Eventually it was explained away an alchemical weapon that Bradley tried to unleash before it was ready in order to quell the coup. It was a complicated tug-of-war that left Mustang exhausted every day and increasingly reluctant to attend to anything else.

"The Colonel keeps his promises," Hawkeye had reassured Scar over dinner in the mess hall. Mustang ordered his meals to be delivered now to his personal office. "But he must work on the foundations first."

"The Ishvalan Revival is a tall order of both administration and manpower," Major Miles had added between bites of dry bread dipped in a watery tomato soup. The demolished roads and railways made it difficult for food to be transported, and the military subsisted on rations mixed with whatever fresh food was available. "Think of it as a tall tree- for the tree to become tall, the roots must grow strong. There cannot be a tall tree with small roots. It would fall immediately."

"You speak like an Ishvalan," Scar could not help but comment. He watched Miles' eyes narrow with an emotion he couldn't place. He felt his own isolation keenly; the Ishvalan survivor stood out like a sore thumb in the mess hall, not clad in the same blue uniform as everyone else. He preferred a simple white shirt with long cargo pants, and he threw on a beige trenchcoat on the cold or rainy days. They relocated Major Miles to Central and appointed him his own office, and made Scar one of his subordinates. Scar was to be given a salary, benefits, a residence… it was all very pointless to the man, but Mustang had insisted. Neither Mustang nor Miles had ever approached him to don the state uniform, though Scar technically did work for them now. Perhaps they sensed he needed more time.

Scar knew he was to be used as a figurehead, along with Miles, to give the Act some legitimacy. He was to represent the face of Ishvala, and there were so many things wrong with that.

Edward and Alphonse Elric were gone, far off to the countryside.

May and her strange little animal had disappeared to the east.

Only Doctor Marcoh remained, and the man was in a hurry to return to that wretched little town to which he'd pledged his life.

Scar found himself very, very lonely. It had never been a problem before. Being on the run, having an identity for himself as God's Hand, these things gave Scar a clear purpose. They gave him a drive. Now that he was more or less an employee of one of the state alchemists who'd participated in the extermination, now that he spent his time surrounded by soldiers, now that no one was in a hurry to kill him and there was no one he was tracking down to kill, Scar found himself… wandering. It was a terrible feeling.

As a priest in the former Ishval, he used to hear the words of God in the wind. He felt God in the warmth of the sand, and tasted their Creator in the sweetness of the water. Even in those terrible dry months of the dry season when the hardiest thornbushes shrivelled like parchment and fruits fell black and pruned from their trees, he never once doubted that Ishvala was with them. Their people knotted lengths of rope and hung them from giant date palm trees, and the women would pray under the scrim of rope while heat rose up around them like a shimmering curtain.

If one year was dry, the rainy season was always quick to follow. Scar never had a reason to doubt the will or fairness of Ishvala, until the extermination.

He used to pray often, not just for himself, but for others in his community. He used to be a light for his people. But his light had meant nothing during the dark night of extermination, when the state alchemists came to raze their land to ashes and dust. He witnessed his family being stolen by demons from the World-to-Come, and he saw his people fall around him and felt the ground beneath him breaking open to swallow him whole. He was forced to watch, helpless, as Ishvala abandoned them during the driest summer in decades, and the rainy season never returned.

 _Is a light still a light if no one is here to notice it?_

Going home to his quarters was like returning to a prison. Every fiber of his being itched to be released. He could almost already feel the heat of the desert sun bearing down on his back. Scar dropped to his knees. "God, O Great Creator Ishvala," he spread his palms out in front of him and bowed his head. "You who are above, below, within and without, you who are higher, deeper, inside, and outside. You who oversee and rule us, your glory is above the heavens. O Creator, come to my assistance. Keep watch over me, Lord, and guard me in the night if such is your will. May you find me worthy to be protected under the shadow of your light, Ishvala, so that I may be guided onto the right path. As you will, so it shall be."

The words, though familiar, tasted bitter in his mouth. Ishvala had _willed_ that Ishval be destroyed. Scar struggled with the thought for years. Could it have been a test of faith?

During the war, the Ishvalans turned to rigorous spiritual practice in order to redeem themselves in the eyes of Ishvala, whom they thought they had offended. Priests took vows of silence for weeks on end in effort to hear Ishvala's commands, but they heard only gunshots. Gunjan resistance warriors banded their arms with barbed wire until their limbs bled blue from infection, believing that their pain and suffering would appease Ishvala to spare their people. The Amestrians continued to advance. During the time of desperation, women turned to sorcery to force miscarriages in fear of birthing a baby into the hands of the Amestrian murderers.

Regardless of what they did, the precautions they took… they still perished in flames.

If this was a test, or a cleanse that Ishvala wanted for His people, Scar wondered why he of all people had survived. What was his role in Ishvala's plan?

It was late now, and the soldiers had surely gone off to the mess for beer. It never seemed that alcohol was in short supply here. Scar himself did not drink much. Though alcohol was not forbidden by Ishvala's teachings, too much of the stuff was said to open a person to darkness and evil. Besides, Scar had no real friends here, no one to drink with.

Miles was not his friend, though he praised the man for his efforts.

Mustang was too exhausted with his daily routines.

Hawkeye was just as busy as the man she worked for, and Scar rarely saw the woman except at mealtimes. And even then, she'd recently started taking dinner with Mustang in his office.

Public opinion of him was slow to change- soldiers here still regarded him with a mix of apprehension and fear. Scar, the criminal, the murderer.

There were no Ishvalan slums in Central, and Miles did not want Scar to leave his supervision before the Ishvalan Revival Act was formally announced and put into place. It would not do for their figurehead to have his image poisoned by his past history. It was better for Scar to lay low for a bit and then re-emerge with a new public image. He was allowed to wander outside once in a while, only under supervision, but the sight of Central being slowly rebuilt made him sick. No one had been there to lend a helping hand when Ishval was leveled to the ground. None of his most loved ones had survived. His mother, his father… his brother…

The weight of his guilt was crushing. His brother had given his life so that he would live… The corners of his mouth quirked. Perhaps it was all for this moment, so that he would survive to aid in this revival. After all, that blonde Major General had said the same. But… _why him?_

Obviously, this sedentary life had given him too much time to think, and thinking was a dangerous thing.

* * *

 **Miles**

Miles did not remember much of his grandfather. The man was a woodcutter, and passed away before his time when he was crushed under a rather large oak that refused to notch properly. The man prayed often, and had many stories to tell. It was a pity that Miles could not remember the vast majority of them.

Miles' father, Conrad was his name, was also born with the dark skin and red eyes so distinctive of the Ishvalan people. As a child, he sometimes heard his parents lamenting over the discrimination his father faced each day. He'd get shorthanded in pay, be harassed into working overtime with no pay at all, or be inexplicably booted from every job he tried his hand at. The man was strongly built with a strong, sharp nose and angular features. If it weren't for his obvious Ishvalan genes, Conrad might have even been said to be attractive in many circles. The man threw his all into roofing, smithing, scrubbing floors, farming, shoe-shining, mining, woodcutting… anything at all he could find, but as tensions in Ishval rose and the daily papers became peppered with anti-Ishvalan propaganda, Conrad found himself consistently unemployed and unable to provide for his wife and child.

That winter their family had to sold what semi-precious things they had for lamp fuel and dried fish. They parted with the gray camelhair blanket trimmed with braided cord that Miles' grandfather had brought with him over the desert, some of their cooking pots, and a pair of heavy copper anklets. The next winter was even worse, and the young boy came down with a case of pneumonia. Miles' mother sold her hair to buy them a bit of bread and some medicine. Suzanne wasn't what anyone would call a strikingly beautiful woman. She was merely average, with a small nose and thin lips, but her hair was like she'd stolen the sun. He remembered the way his fathers' eyes welled up with tears that would not spill as he looked upon his wife, his beautiful wife with white skin and blue eyes, blonde hair no more. Then he'd look at his son, who was dark skinned like him, and the guilt would stab at him like daggers.

Miles' mother was always a calm woman, never complaining, always ready to greet her son with a smile. But the young boy used to hear her crying on the other side of their ramshackle door. Grief, he'd heard and seen often. However, Miles was perhaps blessed that anger and resentment never found its way between his parents. At the very least, it was not expressed.

They were eventually evicted from their tiny one bedroom dwelling and forced into an Ishvalan ghetto.

"I'm not Ishvalan," Conrad had yelled in desperation, clutching to his citizenship papers when they came to take his family. "I was born Amestrian, see!"

But they took his papers and cast it to the ground, stepped on it and spat in his face. They took his mother away. They wouldn't believe Suzanne and Conrad were married. Their marriage documents ripped under the leather soles of their boots. It seemed like the louder Miles screamed, the harder they gripped his mother, until dark bruises appeared on her arms where they held her. She was trying to say something to him- her mouth was moving, but Conrad's yelling was too loud.

And then they were separated.

Miles was seven years old then, and that was the last time he ever saw his mother.

Today he turned thirty-three. Miles himself didn't mention a thing, and went about the day as usual. But Mustang, who always thought it necessary to know and remember the small things, had a habit of deriving key bits of information from his subordinates' files as soon as they come under his command.

He should have known something was up by the way people smiled at him on his way to his office. Predictably, he arrived to find a generic 'Happy Birthday' card taped to his door, signed by dozens and dozens of people.

This was pretty common practice for Central administration, but Fort Briggs had never adopted anything of the like. Strength and endurance was the way of life at Briggs, and when someone's birthday came around they celebrated with beer at the end of their shifts and surprise barfights- but never a card.

He plucked the card from the door. It was filled with signatures- some from people he knew, like Mustang and Hawkeye, and some from complete strangers that were probably his new subordinates. Miles even started feeling a bit bad for not knowing who they were- obviously they knew him, because many left comments and remarks. Most comments consisted simply of 'Happy Birthday', but many were more specific. 'Thank you for helping me sort out the movement orders,' one Logistics Officer had written. 'I hope you enjoy these desserts I've left you in your office,' a one of the mess hall cooks wrote in surprisingly elegant handwriting, 'I noticed how much you like the stuff.'

Despite himself, Miles found himself smiling. These people were Amestrians- soldiers from Central, no less. The Briggs Major would be lying if he said he expected this sort of kindness.

Yet there was one person whose voice was distinctly missing from the card. As much as Miles hated to admit it, he was disappointed that Scar hadn't signed this frivolous and trivial birthday card.

"Your appointments were cancelled today," Warrant Officer Ross told him from behind two giant stacks of papers. "Major Armstrong was immediately needed at Eastern headquarters, so the Ops meeting will have to be postponed until they return the following week."

"Very well," the Major replied, though he was not happy at having to postpone the meeting with Major Armstrong. But there was nothing more to be done- they'd already left. "Are there any papers I could help sort out?" He had much to do himself- drawing up plans and mission statements for the Ishvalan Restoration Act, organizing troops and logistics and securing funding, for example. But there wasn't much he could really push out without having Scar examining his work and offering his thoughts. Miles had made various attempts to get close to the man, and what had originally seemed to be a good partnership suddenly disintegrated into a consistent cold-shoulder treatment from Scar that Miles couldn't explain. It was absolutely imperative that he and Scar could manage to work together. Scar was the centerpiece of their operation. Without Scar, they were fools bumbling in the dark.

"No sir," Ross heaved a great sigh. A rotund man who'd had far too many cakes and pies in his time, the Warrant Officer seemed to roll in his seat. "This paperwork is for me." He gestured to the giant stacks that seemed to be growing each day. "But rest assured, sir, after I've signed them and they've made the rounds, every sheet of paper will come to your desk also. If I were you, sir, I'd take advantage of the break."

Reluctantly, Miles nodded and headed off to his desk, which seemed to emanate an aura of sweetness and butter. A pastry box rested on his desk, and already Miles knew it had to be hiding cream filled profiteroles, his favorite treat. They were not as common now like they used to be, Mustang had lamented a few days ago, since fresh ingredients were hard to come by. But Mustang had insisted that the cooks prepare the treats when the ingredients became available- nothing raised morale quite like being able to enjoy an airy profiterole after a long day's work. Miles had grown quite fond of the bite-sized treat.

Peering into the box, he counted two precious profiteroles, filled to bursting with fresh made cream and drizzled with chocolate, an even rarer commodity. The cook had even dusted the treats with icing sugar. It was the closest thing Miles had ever had to a slice of birthday cake.

 _His Queen would like this_.

The thought came unbidden to Miles' mind.

It'd been almost two months since his last call to Briggs headquarters, to _her_. Miles wasn't a fool. He knew he was going to be tied up in Ishval for a decade at the least, maybe more. It wasn't fair to his Queen. As much as Miles wanted, he couldn't continue what they'd begun.

 _She could do better_ , he told himself, gritting his teeth at the thought of another man seeing her the way he had. But the truth was, he was a man of mixed blood with no wealth to inherit. She was a pureblooded Amestrian from a long line of illustrious aristocrats.

They had no future.

Miles couldn't do that to her.

* * *

 **Kimblee**

In the silence between sleep and waking and sleep again, a drunken and lazy thing spread throughout Kimblee's body. It was a slug, an insect, a snake that burrowed through his body and into his mind, until his head felt full to bursting… A bit of light, understanding, and then Kimblee opened his eyes.

Ah. Yes.

He'd touched it.

For a split second, he'd joined with that profound mystery like a dewdrop evaporating in the morning sun. He'd touched the truth, and it had been both terrible and exhilarating.

Glorious.

He'd always wanted to die joyously, with arms spread and welcoming.

So why…

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

He was in a hospital.

Slowly, the sounds and smells of the environment filtered down into Kimblee's fragmented consciousness. The stench of rubbing alcohol, the continuous droning sound of whispered words and prayers, sometimes interspersed with a fit of coughing or a groan. The light was a horrifying off-white that stung at his eyes, and the Crimson alchemist struggled to remember how to breathe.

"I wasn't sure of his identity before," a deep male voice carried over from the right side… familiar… Kimblee instinctively tried to turn his head, but found he couldn't. Something was holding his head in place. The voice continued, somewhat shakily, "but there is no doubt now. That is Zolf J. Kimblee, the Crimson Lotus Alchemist."

A female voice followed, slightly hoarse but commanding. "I see. I will alert the authorities at Central at once. Is he waking? Load him up with morphine. I don't want any trouble on our hands."

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

Kimblee felt like floating. He wondered where he was. He had no memory of what brought him here. He vaguely remembered fighting some sort of animal… and then somehow… he also remembered peering at many eyes at once in a veil of darkness. He remembered screaming, but laughing at the same time from how good it felt.

He was staring straight at the Angel of Death, who existed solely because he believed in Her ever since he was a child. She opened her mouth and in that black gaping abyss a thousand eyes were blinking. And when She swallowed him whole, it was with the deafening roar of a lion.

* * *

End Ch. 1

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _I always thought that it couldn't have been that easy for **Scar** to get along with **Miles** at first, knowing the drastically different routes they took to redeem Ishval in the eyes of Amestrians, or take vengeance. By my logic, Scar should have hated Miles or at least had to work through some severe animosity. In addition, it couldn't have been easy for Scar to take this **role** as part of Mustang's restoration, so I felt it was necessary to explore his reservations and fears._

 _ **Kimblee** has always intrigued me as a character, and challenged me. In the chapters to come, I hope to delve into his true character under the exterior. I just can't let him be dead, goddamnit. _

_My inspiration for **Ishval** draws on cultural customs and practices of Pre-Islamic Arabia, and other early religious communities such as the early Jews. My Ishval isn't based on any real geographical location, so the flora and wildlife I'm introducing will be a little varied. I've basically divided it into the **three provinces** mentioned in the manga; **Kanda, Gunja, and Daliha.** Kanda has a moderate to hot climate, better for trading than farming. Gunja is a devastating dry stretch of desert with a dead salt sea, and its people survived by war. Daliha is a province of green grasses and oasis ponds, where farming and animal herding was most prevalent. _

_There will be a few **OCs** as we go on, but not more than five and they will be fully developed with motivations of their own that drive the plot._

 ** _Please consider leaving a review with any thoughts on the work so far. I do appreciate it._**


	2. Chapter 2

**Scar**

He wasn't really deep in thought when Miles approached. Scar just wanted to appear that way. He sat at a bench facing the marble fountain in the gardens, now gushing freely, cleared from the rubble and gunk that kept it choked for a whole week.

"Scar."

Scar clenched his fists in his lap.

"What do you want?" He grunted, not taking his eyes off the fountain. It was a lovely ivory white, sculpted meticulously in the shape of a lithe mermaid riding the waves, holding a giant sea conch from which water burst through. He heard some shuffling, and the sweet smell of butter and cream assaulted his nostrils. His stomach, long neglected from not having taken breakfast, clamored.

"I was merely wondering if you'd like to share s-"

"Where did you go to school, Major Miles?" Scar cut in abruptly, glancing sharply upwards towards the man in question and narrowing his eyes. "Some prestigious military academy?"

The Major was obviously taken aback by the sudden question, but he hid his surprise well. He shifted and lowered himself down to sit beside Scar, balancing the flimsy pastry box on his knees. "I went to the State Military College, and there I studied-"

"I too went to school," Scar interrupted again, followed by a cross between a cough of indignation and a laugh. "It didn't have a set of walls, but there I studied how to see through other people's bullshit." He stood and turned to glower down at Miles, scowling. "So what are you trying to pull?" He was sick of Miles trying to pretend like he _understood_ , like he was _one of Scar's people_. He hadn't seen the things Scar had seen, hadn't been through those terrible dark days.

The Major stared at him in a moment of stunned silence and then grit his teeth. "Sit your ass down and take one of these cream puffs from me, you fucking shitpump."

Now it was Scar's turn to be taken aback. He'd never heard Miles use such language before- the man had always been the personification of eloquence. "I-" this wasn't planned. He'd lost the upper hand. "What?"

"Sit," Miles punctuated every word carefully with a voice that cut like ice, "your. Ass. Down. Shitpump."

And so Scar sat. "I'm not a shitpump," he managed to grind out, unsettled that his body had obeyed the command when his mind argued for him to regain the upper hand. It was always like this. Scar hated to be spoken down to, hated to take orders. But this side of Miles was something he'd never seen or heard before.

"Yes you are," The former adjutant of Briggs retorted, flicking open the pastry box and carefully picking up one of the two pastries that remained. "You're a shitpump. You do nothing around here. You don't even help me. Worse, you won't even let me help you. All you do is give me lip and mouth off. You say you can see through other people's bullshit? You see nothing. But you know shit so well because you pump shit yourself, that's all."

"I…" Never in a million years would he have expected this. No one has spoken to Scar like this since… since before that event. The only person that dared to speak to him like this was his former Master, the one they called Old Man Juriv. But that was before the extermination. Afterwards, his anger, destructive alchemy, and his muscular build had intimidated those who opposed him, and none dared to speak down to him, never mind chastise him like Miles had just done. He felt like a baby whose rear had just been smacked.

Miles went on, all calm and serious as though he wasn't just swearing like a sailor. "Did you think I wasn't capable of giving as good as I got? I'm a fucking Major, Scar. Did you think it was easy to accumulate the respect I did as an Ishvalan?"

The way Miles talked about his time in the Amestrian military sent waves of disgust rippling across his body. "You speak of your work with the military like you're so fucking proud of it. You stood at the sidelines while our people died!" Scar's hands were shaking, and so were Miles'. "Your grandfather was Ishvalan but the rest of your blood is Amestrian. You avoided the extermination and even avoided military persecution. You had the _choice_ to leave the military that was murdering us and fight _with us_ , your supposed _brethren_ , but you chose not to. Your reasoning is cowardly and irrational. I don't buy it for a second. Were you simply too scared to fight, Major? Now you claim your Ishvalan ancestry like it's a badge of honor. _You haven't fucking earned it._ "

"What would I have done?" Miles pushed back, and now both men found themselves on their feet, the pastry box forgotten on the bench, staring each other down. "What _could_ I have done? I didn't speak Ishvalan, I would be a stranger in my own community. I wouldn't have fit in anywhere in Ishval! I would have been an enemy."

"And so you decided to just stay and do nothing!"

"I wanted to change the perception of Ishvalans from the inside! I wanted to make the Amestrians change the way they saw us."

"But why the fuck is it _our responsibility_ to change the way they see us?"

Miles was silenced. Scar went on, letting the heated words tumble from his mouth, "why is it our fault that they have a twisted fucking view of Ishval? What did we do wrong? They were the one that shot that child. We were just protecting our own."

"That… wasn't us… and you know that now." Miles sat back down, wiping the powdered sugar from his fingers. "And there's no point of dwelling on what we now know was… a ploy." To this, Scar paused. It seemed Miles had the same idea. Neither of them wanted to talk about the homunculi and their role in all this, especially not in public where they could be overheard. Obviously Miles was shaken by the accusations Scar had made, and was unwilling to argue the point further. He picked up a profiterole again and offered it to Scar, who gingerly reached out his giant hand and received it. "Now eat your pastry before you crush it in that monstrosity you call a hand."

Scar decided to keep his mouth shut. What needed to be said was already said. And Miles was right. At this point it didn't matter that Scar didn't agree with what Miles had done (and not done) and that Miles similarly didn't agree with how Scar went about his vengeance. Those things didn't matter any more.

He ate the pastry in one go.

After Ishval was destroyed, Scar was never able to enjoy food. Amestrian food was alien to him, a foreign taste that reminded him of his life in a foreign land. Food was a necessity. It was an inconvenience. The sooner eating was over with, the sooner he could get back to the things that mattered. After chewing it for a little bit, Scar looked to Miles, who was taking small bites of his own profiterole and admiring how the cream settled inside the pastry shell. "What is this sweet thing that is on it?"

"That is chocolate," Miles told him, a little amused that Scar didn't know what it was. The truth was, a man like Scar wouldn't have been able to afford chocolate at any point… and even if he could afford it, he probably wouldn't even entertain spending money on trivial things like sweets.

"It's your birthday," Scar vaguely remembered the card that'd gone around yesterday evening. He hadn't really given it a second thought. "I suppose congratulations are in order." And why was he speaking like one of _them?_ He sounded like one of those soldiers, all prim and proper. Since when had their positions reversed like so?

"I don't really care," Miles shrugged, finishing off the last of his pastry. A huge cloud drifted over the sun and cast a cool shade down on the two men, sitting by the fountain eating pastries while the rest of the nation struggled to regain their senses in the aftermath of the civil war. "At Fort Briggs, birthdays were never celebrated like this. Strength was our motto. We'd drink in the mess in the evening, and the lucky man or woman would be challenged to fights in our parade square. It was a messy affair. Sometimes people died like that on their birthdays."

The Ishvalan survivor tried to wrap his mind around this. "I don't understand, why kill your friends on their birthday?"

"It's not about killing and it's not about friends," Miles tried to explain, "the culture at Briggs is that of survival, of endurance, of strength. You may have heard Major General Armstrong say that we are one body at Briggs. That is correct. We are all one colony, one flesh, but the weakest of us are constantly being culled, destroyed. It is to keep the body strong. After all, we are dogs of the military and it's a dog-eat-dog world. What you don't trample under your feet will eventually consume you." When he finished, Miles looked visibly drained. _Perhaps,_ Scar thought, _it was tiring to live like that- to constantly have to watch your own back. Or maybe… he misses it._

"How are birthdays celebrated in Ishval?"

The question was, like many things today, unexpected. Above all, Scar recognized that Miles had chosen to use the present tense 'are' instead of 'were'.

"Ah…" he tried to remember. Those were many, many years ago. "It depends on the province. I lived in Kanda, and we were a joyful people. But birthdays were not big celebrations like the equinoxes and solstices. Life was precious in the desert, and we believed that by celebrating birthdays we would draw the attention of evil spirits, and bring bad luck onto the individual." Scar was born during the windy months of winter. Except for the snowcapped mountains on the border of Gunja and Daliha, the rest of Ishval remained warm with the favour of the sun. However, the winter winds were the harshest. The birds that did not migrate were forced down onto the ground, suppressed by violent gusts of wind that could arrive without warning and overturn market stalls and steal children away. In the Gunjan desert, men and women and children were swallowed up every day by the shifting dunes. Each year, Scar gave his thanks for his life. Just like the birds, he bowed to the ground in humility of Ishvala's great power.

Miles carefully considered this. "That's very interesting."

"Hm." It was a strange thing, to actually _speak_ of what had been. Scar was almost reluctant to speak of it, to give it the hope of life again. How wonderful would it be to have solstice celebrations again with his people? How amazing would it be to gather around a fire and share the teachings of Ishvala again? A strange thing welled up in his heart. A warm thing, a laughing thing.

Miles was still speaking. "…You should come to my office when you can. I'd like to learn more about the Ishvalan way of living, and what the differences are between the various clans." He looked to Scar, and it came to the man that they'd been speaking for so long but they hadn't really met their eyes until now. The sun again broke free from its cloudy veil, and the red of Miles' eyes shone brighter than ever. "Do you remember?"

"I do," Scar said, suddenly feeling pensive. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants. For a time, he'd tried to forget. It made the pain easier to endure. He'd chosen to let go of hope and cling instead to anger and a need for vengeance. But that was then, and this was now. "A bit of research would help bring it back more strongly. There are many different clans, but largely divided by northern and Southern allegiances. Cultural practices varied greatly between the northern clans and the nouthern clans, but not so much within those clan groups. When Ishval was divided into distinct provinces, the northern clans mostly settled in Gunja, and the southern clans in Kanda and Daliha. Over time, these provinces developed their own cultural identity."

"I see," Miles stood, the joints of his knees popping as he did so. Sometime during their conversation, the empty pastry box was undone and flattened. How long had they been sitting there? It was almost time for lunch. "Then we'd both best get to work."

"Yeah," Scar agreed, and the Major nodded and turned to walk away. "Hey," Scar called out- "hey!"

Miles halted, and turned his head. "Yes?"

"I'll see you at the bar tonight." A rogue grin broke out across the scarred man's face. "We'll see if I can't trample you under my feet."

The Major gave a slow, lazy smile before turning away again. "An Ishvalan warrior monk, through and through. Very well, my friend."

And the warm, laughing thing in Scar's chest tightened.

* * *

 **Roy Mustang**

Hawkeye was going on and on about something or another. Roy couldn't remember what time it was. The droning babble of her voice grew louder and louder, until- "…are you listening? You can't keep skipping your meals like this."

"There's no space," he shouted at her suddenly, and Lt Hawkeye fell silent. His eyes felt like they were going to fall from their sockets, how tired he was. He couldn't keep his eyelids open, and his parched throat screamed for respite- a break from the constant meetings, speeches, debates, reports, and orders.

God, he just wanted a _break_.

"There's no space," he said again, somewhat incoherently with a slurred tongue, "there's no time to go down to the mess, no space on my desk to put the food… I can't…" his desk was indeed crammed with stacks upon stacks of paperwork. Administrative releases, road move maps, supply drop point relocations, supply requisitions, purchase orders, equipment movement orders, promotions, personnel selections, staff reports… then there were annexes to be reviewed, claims to be organized and sent to the Chief Clerk, after action reports to sign…

There wasn't any space left.

There wasn't any time left.

Riza Hawkeye was looking at him with _that_ look again. That look of concern that always made him want to scoop her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be fine. But now it just annoyed him. He didn't know what to say to her. He just wanted her to leave. He didn't want to watch her worry over him.

But Hawkeye was not stupid. She was as perceptive as she was deadly accurate with a rifle, and it was for this reason that she became his adjutant. "I'll go to the mess and bring you up some food. We'll make space somehow."

She didn't even wait for him to dismiss her.

When the door finally clicked shut, Roy Mustang released a deep breath that he hadn't even known he was holding.

The destruction from the civil war was striking. The signs of it remained everywhere, even after weeks of alchemists, soldiers, and construction personnel working around the clock. The roads were still in terrible shape. Not even alchemy could make concrete out of air and dust, and it couldn't restore families that had been torn apart. Some public and municipal services had been effectively destroyed. Some schools ceased to function. Youths spilled out into the streets and joined gangs and counter-revolutionary groups, attacking Grumman's new doctrines and rallying to bring back the Bradley administration.

They didn't have enough soldiers in Central, nor enough state alchemists. Those that they still had were terrified, and constant rotations in and out of Central had left them exhausted with the sense that things had just changed for the worse, not better.

After some weeks in command, the problems seemed to extend deeper than Mustang imagined. Since the Homunculi had planned the complete destruction of Amestris on the Promised Day, the state of key buildings and facilities in the military had fallen to appalling conditions beneath the surface. The majority of their equipment was past their expiry date and rusted to hell and back, and the new equipment former Fuhrer Bradley had supposedly acquired were never purchased or produced. It had all been a lie to placate the unknowing parties until the Promised Day.

Every day he and the now Fuhrer Grumman sat in meetings with deputy ministers and department heads and would listen as they tried to argue how they had enough money for growth, transformation, operations… _but in reality they didn't_. The military barely had enough to survive on the dregs that remained, never mind grow or transform to a new force. There wasn't enough money, equipment, manpower, resources, or alchemists to do any of the things Roy and Grumman had wanted to do as soon as the Bradley administration was toppled.

He hadn't planned for it to be like this. He hadn't known… he couldn't even start to really address the problems they were facing- challenges that people even within their respective departments failed to recognize.

A terrible thought dawned on him: that he would spend his lifetime and career fixing and cleaning up the shit the Bradley administration had left behind… and there would be no chance for him to reform Amestris as he'd intended. And how was he to take care of Ishval when the Central administration was still so weak?

After all the promises he'd made to Miles and Scar… After allowing Marcoh to use his philosopher's stone to get his vision back... He couldn't even give them an accurate timeframe when he'd be able to start funding their mission.

Roy Mustang felt like a failure.

 _Ring. Ri-_

Roy hated the sound so fucking much. He wrenched the phone off its holder and growled into the receiver, "what is it?"

The pinched voice of Sgt Fuery filtered through, "Sir, a call from a hospital in Eastern. They took in a patient several weeks ago- some locals dropped him off. Apparently the patient is Solf J. Kimblee."

 _This is not happening, this is not happening_ , Mustang rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Put me through to the hospital."

"Sir." _Click._

Silence. All Mustang could hear was his own breathing, haggard and exhausted.

"Yes, Sir. This is Dr. Heisenberg." A woman this time, a calm voice against a backdrop of mechanical beeps and what sounded like air pumps.

"Tell me about this patient."

"Sir, some locals brought him to a minor hospital in Central twenty two days ago, after they supposedly found him lying out in a field with his neck gashed open. Somehow he was alive, but due to overflow at Central State Hospital, they brought him to us. His neck and face was swollen with infection at the time, so we weren't able to identify him. But we thought he might be one of yours." As the woman went on, Mustang sighed and felt a migraine start to blossom in his head. "Yesterday, Major Armstrong stopped by to visit the wounded soldiers here and happened to see the patient. He identified him as the Crimson Lotus Alchemist."

"…I… see." Likely that when the Elric brothers and Hohenheim foiled the nationwide human transmutation circle, the resulting release of souls back into their bodies also allowed Kimblee's soul to return to his body from where ever it was floating about.

"The patient is in stable condition at the moment. We are currently dosing him with morphine. Sir… what do you want us to do with him…?"

It took a moment for the realization to sink in of what the Doctor was actually asking. She was asking if Mustang wanted her to deliver Kimblee a fatal dose of medication. No one would know. They would write it off as a medical accident. It would be a clean cull. There would be no trial or court martial involved. No one even needed to know who he was; everyone already believed he was dead and rotting.

But Kimblee was a skilled alchemist. He didn't have a station, unlike Major Armstrong, who was often out of Central on account of official administrative duty. After Scar's rampage months ago, Mustang desperately needed skilled state alchemists in Central. If Solf J. Kimblee could be made to work for him, he could do the work of a thousand men in half the time. Though others claimed the Crimson Lotus was insane or psychotic, Roy knew that the man was not _senseless_. They were never friends by any means, but they weren't _enemies_ either. A small part of Roy was just insane enough to believe that he could convert Kimblee to their cause. And that small bit of insanity was enough.

Roy couldn't bring himself to think of the colors any more. He knew what Kimblee had done, and yet right now the numbers pulled at him more. He had no choice. Now was no time for justice. Now he just wanted the young people to have a school to go to and the roads to be fixed. He had no choice but to overlook Kimblee's history. After all, had Mustang himself not participated in the same extermination?

He tried not to think of what Grumman would say. Roy really could not understand how the old man managed to do all the things he did in one day, and the thought of bringing this additional problem to him made the Flame Alchemist feel disgusted. If he was already this exhausted, he couldn't imagine how things were at the very top. At the very least, he needed to consider his options more. He couldn't let the doctor put Kimblee to death yet.

"Sir..?"

"Dr. Heisenberg, when can you release the patient to us?"

"In four days, Sir."

"I will request that Major Armstrong escort the patient back to Central on the day of his release. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, Sir. Will his treatment be billed to the same financial code…"

"Yes," Mustang covered his eyes with his hand, rubbing them to keep himself awake. "Yes."

"Sir. Good day."

 _Click._

So it was done.

Calmly, with slow and intense precision, Roy Mustang put the phone back into its receiver.

And then he promptly passed out on his desk, the weight of his slumping body pushing the neat stacks of paper to the ground and scattering them like white birds.

* * *

 **Miles**

They drank and they laughed but they never fought. After all, they weren't at Briggs. The time for fighting would come, but that time wasn't now.

All his life, Miles had felt the pressure of being judged based on his appearances. And even now, drinking cheap beer with Scar, he felt judgment fall like a blanket over him. Miles didn't quite fit in anywhere. He wasn't Amestrian and he wasn't Ishvalan either.

Like a dam had been broken, the other man started to open up. Stories of his childhood flooded forth, one tale flowing easily into the next just like how beer flowed easily from the tap. The bartended kept handing them beer after beer. Miles hadn't even realized that it was another of Central's unspoken rituals to offer free beer to officers on their birthdays, paid for by a tab the bar accumulated by taking in a day's salary from each person whenever they were promoted. Unfortunately, the newly promoted officer also paid for that day's beer tab for every soldier. That's why promotions at Central were always a bittersweet affair. The promoted officer could lose up to a week's worth of salary simply buying drinks for their subordinates. But as such, the bar constantly had a supply of money for special events such as birthdays and other celebrations.

Scar even asked Miles a bit of his childhood, but there wasn't much to tell.

"What do you remember of your grandfather?" Scar leaned forward, the alcohol wafting from his breath. At first he'd been reluctant to drink, but like any other man once he had one or two beers the rest was inconsequential. "Do you remember his name? Did he ever mention where from Ishval he was from? The provinces didn't exist so many years ago, so he would have affiliated with a clan name. Why did he leave?"

Miles struggled to grip onto his own mind, which was becoming more slippery by the minute. "His name was Aslam, as I remember. I don't remember anything about a clan, he didn't speak much of that. I don't remember why he left either, I was too young… But…" the memory pushed at the edge of his consciousness, tugging to be uncovered. "He brought a camelhair blanket with him when he arrived in Amestris, and some steel daggers. He had to sell those daggers when I turned three or four, but I remembered they were beautiful things."

Scar scratched his chin, which was starting to collect stubble. Around them, a group of young officers started hollering with laughter over some joke. The Ishvalan survivor was deep in thought, dredging up all he remembered about the various clans and any overlap with what Miles had just told him. "Camelhair, hm? If it actually meant anything to him, then that means he was a nomad. My clan was non-nomadic. The Kanda, which are a people named after the province we came from, were a family of many greater and lesser clans. We were farmers and we manufactured some goods like pottery, cheeses, and fabrics. We weren't traders; the Gunjans were more known for raiding and trading. We didn't keep camels. If your grandfather prized his daggers and camelhair blankets, then he must have come from Gunja. Steel daggers are the trademark of the Jhuyta clan, though others use them as well. The Jhuyta are known as fierce raiders, though it scattered after it was defeated by the larger Umayy clan. Both are clan-families in Gunja."

"Scattered?"

"Yes, I will have to explain to you how tribal politics tend to work. But basically, the clan lost its power and its members separated. It's like a mini diaspora. That doesn't tend to happen for settled tribes like mine; we were large and secure enough, and we didn't have much gold or riches, so raiders found it easier to target other nomad or merchant clans." Scar gestured heavily with his hands, already getting carried away with the talk. "Most who separate become clients of other clans and later become members. We call them _mawali_. Others… well, they drift off. To Xing, to Amestris, to other lands, some even try to start their own clans."

"I see, so it's a possibility my grandfather was a member of this clan." Thinking of his grandfather as a raider or warrior was a foreign concept to Miles. Aslam had always been a woodcutter in his mind.

Their conversation was cut short when Hawkeye joined them at the bar, though nowadays Lieutenant BlearyEye would be more fitting.

"Another exhausting day?" Miles asked, chuckling when Riza simply heaved an annoyed sigh and gestured for her usual shot of whiskey.

"You wouldn't hear the end of it," the Lt muttered scathingly, tapping the shotglass on the wooden table and then throwing it back all in one go.

"What's the tap for?" Scar asked. He'd noticed that everyone in the mess, Miles included, tended to tap their drinks on the bar before they drank.

"The tap," Miles explained, "is a toast to those who are no longer with us. In remembrance."

"I see."

Meanwhile, Lt Hawkeye was rambling on and on. It was quite a treat to see her so disheveled after a long day's work of keeping the Colonel on track. "The man goes and pulls all sorts of shit when I'm not there, it's like he does it on purpose just to piss me off. Sometimes I just feel so fucking _done_ , I swear it."

"What did he do this time?" Miles probed with a lazy amusement, taking slow sips from his nth beer while Scar did the same, increasingly detaching from the conversation.

But he snapped back to reality the moment Hawkeye mentioned a certain name. He slammed his glass down so hard that the thing shattered all over the table, and the mess abruptly fell quiet. The sound of Scar's spilled beer was the loudest thing you could hear in the mess for several long seconds.

"Why the fuck is he still alive?!"

Miles covered his face with his hands. "No… that… can't be…"

"Sit down, Scar," Hawkeye whispered, realizing that she'd made a mistake letting it slip out like that. She hadn't meant for him to find out like this, in here. But there was no time to get hung up on the mistake now- she had to do damage control before somebody got to know things they didn't need to know. "Calm down, let me explain. Don't make a scene."

By this point Miles was feeling ill. "Let's get out of here. It's late."

"Yes, let's." Hawkeye caught on to what Miles was doing, and put a calming hand on Scar's shoulder. The Ishvalan was positively radiating fury. "Let's go to Major Miles' office, I'll explain."

"No," Scar slapped Hawkeye's hand from his shoulder, glaring hard at the woman. "Bring me to Mustang, let him explain himself." But at the same time, he was allowing himself to be led out of the Officers' mess.

While Hawkeye was going on about how the Colonel was occupied at the moment and that Miles' office was the better place to go, Miles himself just wanted to go back to Briggs. He missed the cold dearly, and was absolutely exhausted with the politics of Central. This was never part of the agreement. While Scar simply focused on the fact that Kimblee was alive, Miles saw the greater implication in Mustang's decision. The Major was not a fool; he knew the Colonel was desperate for state alchemists. No doubt Mustang had to make the difficult choice to bring Kimblee back despite the risks and moral gray areas involved. However, what did this mean? Kimblee was the worst of the state alchemists during Ishval, having killed the most people including those that weren't in accordance to his orders. Kimblee's list of war crimes was enough to sentence any ordinary soldier to death six hundred times over. If Kimblee were allowed to return, then he'd be under state sponsorship once more. Unless Mustang intended to court martial him after enlisting his help, Miles couldn't imagine this scenario having a just end. And of course that wouldn't be the case since then why would the Crimson Alchemist cooperate? What kind of deal had Mustang offered Kimblee, and what were the implications for Ishval and the other state alchemists who'd yet to answer for their crimes?

The door to Miles' office closed, and, like a switch had been flipped, Riza was Lt. Hawkeye once more. "I had wanted to brief the two of you first, so you wouldn't be surprised when the Colonel comes out with the mission statement. This is to be a new clause of the Ishval Restoration Act."

Scar looked like he was about to murder Riza, and Miles stepped to the side to stand between the two of them. His one hand extended back to remind Scar to back off. "Lieutenant," he had to keep his cool. Even if the anger boiled in his gut, he had to do it for Scar's sake. "What is the meaning of this? What will this new clause mean for us?"

Hawkeye crossed her arms and took on a stern expression. "The clause recognizes that the state alchemists who'd participated in the Ishvalan extermination were merely following orders by a misguided head of state. They were simply doing their duty. The clause does call for these state alchemists who committed additional war crimes to be court martialed and justly punished. However, state alchemists and other parties involved may appeal to slightly reduce their sentences by serving in the Ishvalan Restoration project." As she spoke, Scar's anger became a visible thing. The temperature of Miles' office seemed to drop five degrees. Miles, on the other hand, was taking it all in with the cool appraisal of a military officer.

If he had been anyone else, it would have sounded fair. He did see what Mustang was getting at. By executing or imprisoning state alchemists responsible in the Ishvalan extermination, Mutang would effectively be crippling his own administration at the worst possible time. Not only that, but the restoration would take eons to get off the ground. No number of men could replace the skill of an educated state alchemist. It was alchemy that razed Ishval to dust. It would only be possible and fair that alchemy should raise it from the ashes once more. Even though Miles knew that Ishvalans regarded alchemy as against the teachings of Ishvala, re-building Ishval by hand while the Ishvalans themselves were trying to gather their bearings would take decades or even a century, and would sap so much government funding on account of foreign aid that the typical Amestrian citizen would rapidly lose interest and turn against the campaign. By roping in state alchemists and forcing them to work for next to nothing in exchange for reduced sentences, Mustang had made a very smart move.

"But Kimblee…" Miles was still keeping a close eye on Scar. "Kimblee's war crimes are of an incredible scope. If he were to be tried, he'd receive the death sentence."

"Yes," Hawkeye nodded curtly, her large eyes flicking quickly to Scar and back to Miles. She'd never admit it to anyone, but the scarred man truly frightened her on an animalistic level. "The clause will state that those sentenced to death may receive partial pardon by dedicating the rest of their lives to the Ishvalan Restoration Project. Of course, they must first appeal for this chance and prove that they can be trusted. Then they will fall under careful surveillance for the first fifteen years of their time in Ishval, with semi annual inspection of their efforts. If the appeal is rejected or they are reported for any act of injustice while in Ishval, or even if they are found not working hard enough, the death penalty will immediately be applied."

Miles considered this. _This could actually work._

Scar seemed to brighten up suddenly. "Dr. Marcoh…"

Riza's face split into a tired smile, relieved that Scar finally seemed to see the silver lining. "Yes. Dr. Marcoh will be offered his chance to make things right."

"Dr. Marcoh would like that, the old geezer." Miles could tell that Scar was pleased with the prospect of working alongside Marcoh in the Restoration Project. He knew already that the doctor would agree to give his life to the project if needed be- the opportunity to right his conscience would be too great to pass up. Momentarily, it seemed, Scar had forgotten Kimblee. The alcohol was starting to take effect. "Good…. Doctor… Good…"

Hawkeye glanced at Miles, and Miles understood. _Hawkeye always had a way of managing things from below_ , Miles thought with amusement. He'd always heard it said that behind every great man was an even greater woman, and Hawkeye was the living example. "Good night, Lieutenant." Hawkeye came to a hasty attention and saluted. By this point Scar had started to slump against the other Ishvalan, and Miles slung Scar's arm over his shoulder and used his other hand to grip the man's belt to keep him from falling. He couldn't salute, so he simply nodded and started the arduous walk of carrying the drunken Ishvalan priest back to his own quarters.

"Good night, Major." _Lt._ _Colonel,_ Hawkeye thought with a sly smile. But that was still a secret.

* * *

 **Kimblee**

Armstrong was acting like a baby again. Never mind, it suited his face.

"I wish I'd never found you," Major Armstrong grumbled, "a man like you… you don't deserve to be alive."

"But I am," Kimblee happily corrected his former comrade, settling into the leather seat of the shiny black military vehicle. _Ahhh_ , he'd missed this feeling. Armstrong had chosen to sit in the passenger seat to deliberately avoid having to sit beside Kimblee, who lounged about in the back like a cat stretching after a long nap. "So, that kid Mustang is the head of the country now?"

Armstrong absolutely refused to turn his head. But the slight jab to Mustang's image prompted him to retort, "not yet, but the man's not a kid. I have absolute faith in him."

"I didn't ask about you," Kimblee grinned. This was too much fun. He loved poking fun at Armstrong, even during the Ishval extermination. The look on the man's face when Kimblee killed those women and children he'd tried to save… it was times like this that the Crimson Alchemist was glad for his photographic memory. Big men could never quite intimidate you the same after you'd seen them on their knees, bawling like a baby. "So what happened to-"

"Save your questions for the Colonel, Crimson." Armstrong was positively unwilling to entertain any more of Kimblee's questions. After all, he wasn't entirely sure what Mustang wanted to do with him, and didn't want to tell Kimblee anything that the Colonel didn't intend for him to know.

Kimblee gave an exaggerated sigh. "You're no fun, Armstrong."

When the big man refused to answer, Kimblee resigned himself to staring out the window. Eastern was largely unaffected by the civil war, so he'd heard in the hospital. What Kimblee didn't understand was how he got here. Last he remembered, he was in Central complaining about his suit being ruined or something. At the moment he was clad in the typical blue and white uniform of the military. The uniform wasn't his size and it was a little tight in the elbows. Kimblee missed his white suit terribly, but Armstrong had insisted that those days of Kimblee wearing whatever he wanted was over, and pushed the state uniform on him. From this, the alchemist smugly deduced that he was probably going to have a good time in Central, even if he didn't get to wear what he liked.

He was still in a neck brace, which meant that he couldn't turn his head to fully look out at the scenery. Of course he wondered a little what awaited him in Central, but if he was being escorted back by the Major himself and in relative comfort, Kimblee deduced that they intended to use him in some way. The Crimson alchemist was fine with not knowing. There came a terrible responsibility with knowing- sometimes it was best to wait and enjoy the ignorance while it lasted. _Why worry?_ He met with every problem head on and with complete totality, not worrying about anything until then. That was always how Kimblee had lived, and it was how he died. People called him a psychopath, and Kimblee sometimes agreed just for the hell of it, but in actuality he didn't consider himself a psychopath at all. In fact, he thought of himself as the anti-psychopath. After all, psychopaths were said to be out of touch with reality. But Kimblee felt that he was _so in touch_ with reality that other people, other less conscious people, just weren't able to comprehend it.

He'd seen it.

Kimblee stared at the back of Armstrong's head. _He didn't know_. The Crimson alchemist felt slightly giddy. He wanted to laugh. His neck was in a brace and an IV was still pumping a mixture of codeine and antibiotics into him, but he felt _great!_ In fact, it was even better than when he was healed by the power of a philosopher's stone. He felt in unison, complete, _glorious_. He was happy to be alive, just as he was happy to be dead. Kimblee was just really fucking happy. In fact, things were so good that they were very much in danger of being very, _very bad_. Kimblee always thought that great things, like ripe fruits, were always on the edge of rotting.

Sometimes Kimblee suddenly found it very strange to be himself, to be in his body. He'd look down at his hands, the backs of which were smooth with long, straight fingers. When he was a child, he played the violin. His father used to take him to symphonies when the theatres opened in the winter. At the premier of one of Joseph Mahler's symphonies, which critics had denounced as _a mess of incoherent chaos_ , he'd watched his father stand alone amidst the sea of boos and hisses, a smile on his face and clapping until the hall emptied and it was just the two of them. Kimblee had clapped too, until his hands were burning and his arms felt ready to fall off. He was scared to stop. _Though_ , he did admit, _the concert really didn't sound half bad._

"Don't get any silly ideas," Armstrong's growled voice shook him out of his trip to memory lane. "I'm watching you."

It occurred to Kimblee that he had been staring at the palms of his hands for quite some time. His trademark transmutation circles were still tattooed onto his palms. It was possible that he didn't even need them any more. But just like how it had been in prison, his hands were held apart by a pane of wood.

The driver was talking to Armstrong now, the two men chatting jovially while completely ignoring Kimblee. Annoyed, Kimblee concentrated and tried to pick up on what the two were on about.

"…I hear that they figured out radioactive capture. It won't be long until we won't need the Crimson alchemist any more, no?" The driver, some silly young corporal, was quietly insulting him. In such a passive-aggressive manner, too. _What a coward,_ Kimblee thought.

Armstrong chuckled quietly, "I can't keep up with you young'uns any more. What do you mean by that?"

"It means that we'll be able to make better bombs than ever before, and very quickly too. You see, this element called tritium will be the road to the future. It is capable of-"

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Kimblee cut in. "Tritium is obtained from deuterium reactions. To do this, you would require huge amounts of heavy water as a neutron moderator. We cannot economically support the building of heavy water reactors, not to mention the ratio of tritium to deuterium is very low. It's good that you're all excited like some schoolboy pissing his pants, but it doesn't matter what tritium is capable of if we can't actually obtain it. It won't happen. You forget that alchemists are also scientists, and I am a scientist that can perform chemical diffusion, electromagnetic separation, particle bombardment, and thermal diffusion with a clap of my hands. Give me more time, and I'll figure out a way to produce fission in a sustained chain reaction, all without boron. So, tell me again what amazing new element is going to replace me?"

The corporal didn't have a comeback to that. Of course the Crimson Alchemist, the _Mad Bomber_ as they called him, would know more about the chemical nature of explosives than he did. He didn't even understand three quarters of the things that came out of Kimblee's mouth. Thoroughly humbled, the rest of the ride to Eastern station was quiet. Kimblee was alright with that- he didn't mind the quiet. It made him feel acutely alone, and he had a skill for feeling alone whether he was in the company of two soldiers or ten thousand wailing spirits. Some peopled shied from loneliness; they filled their time with outings and sex… but to Kimblee, loneliness and aloneness were two entirely different things, and some of the most poignant moments of human existence could only be enjoyed in aloneness. He very, very much enjoyed those long years in jail.

Mustang once suggested that Kimblee had no heart. That was after the Crimson alchemist killed sixteen women and children hiding in the basement of a collapsed building. There had been no reason to go back and specifically ensure they were dead. Mustang wanted to move on, to write them off. Move onto the next district to be exterminated. But Kimblee stayed, and did what he had to do.

"Have you ever loved, at all?" Mustang asked him after the walls were painted red with the blood of the innocent. The man was speaking with the voice of a dead thing, and Kimblee couldn't quite tell what Mustang was feeling. Not like it mattered, anyway.

"I have, deeply, totally. In fact, I am in love now." Kimble flexed his knuckles, admiring his work. Mustang turned away, shoulders slouched. The stench of blood and guts and concrete dust pervaded every inch of the crumbling stone basement- it was ready to collapse any moment. Kimblee loved places like this; impermanent, dangerous… _beautiful._

"Yet you are the loneliest person I know."

Was that pity Kimblee heard? "I'm not lonely, I'm just alone."

Silence.

Kimblee turned to face Mustang; his weary comrade, his fire team partner, his challenger. "Only those who are capable of being alone are capable of real love. I'm happy every moment of every day." The words hit Roy like imaginary bullets. Mustang was recoiling against the face of one of the fallen children who was missing part of his jaw, his still face barely held together by sinew and gore. "I love a lot of things. I love the sound of an explosion ripping the air apart. I love the look of fire against a blue sky, like fire dancing on water. That's why I like you, Flame." Kimblee smiled, and it was such a different kind of smile that Mustang felt his feet disappear into nothingness under him. It wasn't one of those psychotic, insane grins often attributed to the Crimson alchemist; it was a quiet, joyful thing that made his face light up like a happy child who saw something amazing.

Mustang suddenly dropped to his knees and vomited the contents of his meager breakfast. The yellow and white of his bile mixed with the liquid crimson that blanketed the floor.

That was an interesting day, Kimblee remembered, drawing his attention back to the quiet vehicle. Who'd have thought that one day Mustang would be the one in control of his fate? _That's why I like you, Flame._ He smiled again, thinking of the fond memory. Armstrong caught a glimpse of it from the rearview mirror, and felt his bowels turn to jelly. Nonetheless, he managed to keep a straight face the whole way while Kimblee eventually dozed off and began snoring softly.

* * *

End Ch. 2

* * *

There's that conversation that **Scar and Miles** SHOULD HAVE HAD prior to becoming all buddy-buddy. **"Shitpump"** is actually used pretty often in the military. For example, if someone new got attached to our section, we might ask their previous section if they were a shitpump or not. It means that they're either lazy or purposefully try to create problems.

For this AU to make sense, **Mustang** had to be _extremely desperate_ to want Kimblee back to work for him. And in my perspective, after everything that happened in Central, the desperation should be believable. Grumman's rise to power isn't a simple change-of-command. It's still the result of a coup, and Mustang has to reconsolidate this new government as quickly as possible, no matter how he has to do it.

Why is Mustang so tired? A lot of people overlook the consequences of such a change in administration. I work in military logistics, and a legitimate change-of-command of a _company commander_ shakes things up ENORMOUSLY, nevermind a sudden change in the _head of state_.

As always, reviews are appreciated. Thank you :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Scar**

A month after the fall of the Bradley administration, Mustang finally issued his Ishvalan Restoration Act, complete with its accompanying clauses. Most state alchemists who'd participated in the extermination had not committed any war crimes above what was directly ordered, and could hence avoid the court martials. However, they were heavily pressured by propaganda to give aid for reparation efforts.

The Armstrong family immediately started a fundraising campaign headed by Major Armstrong, who got to work as soon as he returned to Central, much to Miles' chagrin. "When will we have that Ops meeting?!" the Major had cried, and Armstrong simply brushed him by, sparkles in his eyes and inexplicably naked from the waist up, ranting about how he was to make repairs for his past wrongs. Mustang himself donated a large sum out of his private funds as an example to his subordinates.

As the days went on and the news covered the Armstrong Foundation for Ishval, more donations started piling in from private and public agencies alike. It wasn't long before Mustang burst into Miles' office himself, a smile on his face that looked like he'd finally managed to sleep for the first time in a month. Scar looked up from the ruined maps he was working to reconstruct from his own desk, and stood up in respect when Miles stood. He'd slowly learned the way of life here. Stand up, put his heels together, and stand straight when a superior officer enters. If he was walking alone, he didn't need to check his arms at all. If a soldier or officer accompanied him, he was to check his arms when they saluted any officers. At first Scar didn't really give a shit, but increasingly he came to appreciate having people look at him with familiarity and even smile at him once in a while. He didn't want to be a stranger any more, especially to these people that he'd be working with in Ishval.

Sgt Amina Cross, their Quartermaster, was busy compiling stores and requisitioning supplies for their eventual desert deployment. She was a serious woman, middle aged but she didn't look it at all, chestnut hair and glasses framing a scrutinizing set of eyes. She was outspoken and wasn't afraid to challenge doctrine. 2Lt Havoc, also assigned to the Ishval mission, was on the phone day after day rallying public enterprises for sponsorship. The two often argued over what was the best way to lay out their Commodity Point once they got there. Havoc wanted shelves to be arranged in rows like a normal supply depot, but Cross wanted the shelves to line the walls of the CP so that desks and a drop-off area could be arranged in the center of the tent, with the hottest commodities arranged in moveable tri-walls.

Warrant Officer Ross, the Chief Clerk, had finished his stack of paperwork and now they had indeed migrated to Miles' desk. Now Ross slaved over pay and funding conflicts, as well as the huge influx of donations that they now needed to sort and collect. He was a thoughtful man, his sense of humor as large as his belly, always ready with a joke or two. "You need a proper name, friend," he liked to remind Scar every morning while waddling by, sipping his cup of coffee, _four milks and four sugars_. "What about Neo? Or Tom? Miles can be Jerry. My kid likes that show." Whenever he laughed, his big bald head got so red that Scar was afraid he'd have a stroke. Or turn into a sausage. Whichever came first.

Dr. Marcoh had gladly returned to central headquarters, his appeal for service granted. Dr. Knox's appeal came later, but was making its way through the appropriate chain of command. Since Marcoh had been ordered and more or less illegally coerced to participate in the Philosopher's Stone experiments, his sentence came out to be twenty years, and he was only required to serve fifteen years in Ishval. However, the Doctor gladly pledged his word that he'd stay in Ishval until he died if need be. "Those people need me," he'd told Scar, before something flickered in his eyes, _"your people_ need me." His face was still terribly marred from when Scar burned his face to make him unrecognizable. His eyelids were a droopy mess and his mouth was so scarred that it didn't even seem like he had lips anymore. Scar felt guilt inching its way into him each time he looked at Marcoh. The Doctor saw, and reminded the man constantly that if he hadn't destroyed his face and helped him escape, he'd be dead. Mustang would be blind, and Havoc would still be in a wheelchair, and that was only if they all even survived the Promised Day.

Scar couldn't imagine Roy Mustang blind. The Colonel was marching towards Miles now, Captain Hawkeye trailing him as always. The man was full of spirit today. "Great news, Major."

"Sir?" Major Miles ended his salute and shook hands with Mustang. Their positions had completely been reversed; now Miles was the exhausted one, crushed under pile after pile of paperwork. "Please tell me you've finally got a timing for us."

"Indeed," Mustang put his hands on his hips and puffed up his chest, excitement glowing in his every line. "The advance party is scheduled to leave next week. They'll set up the rudimentary mod tents and weather havens, as well as mess tents, command points, telephone lines and electric towers, latrine facilities, and the like. I sure wouldn't want to be them, which is why you'll be deploying in two and a half weeks."

"But," Scar interjected, upset that other people were doing their dirty work. "But we should be there too."

"We're officers, not soldiers," Miles told him point blank, "there is no place for us there. We'll simply be an annoyance. And you can't go on your own. This is a nationwide effort, not a one-man job."

Two weeks ago, Scar wouldn't have tolerated something like this from the other Ishvalan. But since then, things had changed, and Scar could see the reason in the other man's words. "I see. And what about the Ishvalans returning?"

Mustang turned to face Scar, giving him his full attention. "At the moment we cannot arrange transportation for every survivor to return to Ishval. At least not while Ishval is in the state it's in right now, anyway. Until Dr. Marcoh sets up a working clinic, living conditions there might be worse than in the slums. However, we will prepare camps and living quarters for any Ishvalans who choose to return, and I've been told there are a lot of them who are willing to make the journey."

"We can't re-build Ishval without Ishvalans," Scar reminded Mustang. "We will need community leaders, priests, teachers… and at least one wise old lady."

The Colonel had nodded to everything up until the last part. "P-pardon?" Hawkeye was stifling laughter behind him. "I, uh," Mustang tried to compose himself, feeling like he had just become the butt of some joke that completely went over his head. "We'll set aside some funds to transport some key community members back to Ishval, if you can locate them. I hope they don't fight each other."

It was Miles' turn to contribute, the Major still smiling a bit at how Scar completely tipped Mustang off balance. "Scar has taught me much about how Ishval operated as a clan based society, but as things stand now I doubt anyone would throw away a chance of reviving their culture and nation for the sake of old clan rivalries. After all, with a wise old lady such conflicts would be easily solved."

"Uh-" Mustang was confused again, and even Scar started to snicker. "Uh, ha ha ha," the Colonel laughed uneasily, looking every bit as young and foolish as he did a year ago, before Hughes died, before the Homunculi, before the weight of his new office. Riza missed this Roy.

But in a moment the Colonel was serious again. "Scar. Miles." His voice dropped low and he looked at the two men in turn. "I must inform you that a certain mutual friend of ours has appealed to serve a lifetime sentence in Ishval." He gave a moment for it to sink in.

Scar was grateful, because anything the Flame Alchemist said after that would have been completely lost on him. He'd known now for a week that Kimblee was still alive and could potentially be incorporated into the Restoration, but that was all speculation until now. In his mind, he expected Kimblee to turn down the offer in that psychopathic way of his, choosing death over the prospect of having to help rebuild what he'd destroyed.

But of course Kimblee was Kimblee, and predictable was not a word often used to describe the Crimson alchemist.

Scar and Miles already had talks about this moment, about what would happen. "Colonel," Scar spoke slowly, carefully, trying to contain the flurry of emotions inside that now consisted of more than just naked anger. "How can we be sure that our _mutual friend_ won't turn against us? He's duped the psychological evaluation once, he can do it again."

"Your caution is understandable." Mustang started to pace the office now, looking more and more uneasy by the second. It made Scar uneasy as well, and he began to shift on his feet. His palms twitched. "Of all the state alchemists that have appealed, Kimblee's appeal was the most… surprising. I sat on the appeal committee myself. He… doesn't seem to have any regret of what he'd done. But he also appears surprisingly committed to the project. I-I don't quite know what to make of it. Maybe the near death experience changed something in him, I don't know."

Scar could see Miles grinding his jaw in slow rotations; such was the man's custom when he was bothered by something. "Just like Kimblee to not regret a thing," Scar spat, the memory of the easy way Kimblee talked digging at him. How was a man like that to re-build Ishval? When he gave absolutely no fucks about what he'd done? How were the Ishvalans supposed to trust this man? Some survivors even remembered his face as the last thing they saw before their world burst into nothing. Such was the case for Scar himself. The infamous marking on his forehead reminded him each day of what he'd suffered at the hands of the Crimson Alchemist. How was he to tolerate sharing the same air as such a man, nevermind working alongside him? "I don't trust him. You say he'll be under surveillance, but you don't think the bastard can just turn around and kill us all?"

The Colonel sighed, his broad shoulders dropping. "Yes, I'd considered that also. That is why for Kimblee's case only, I've instituted a drastic measure. This morning we wheeled him off to surgery, and we implanted a remote controlled explosive chip in the space between his heart and lungs."

Miles grimaced, his voice coming out hoarse. "That… is…"

Mustang continued, looking again as fatigued as he did a week ago, "of course, Kimblee doesn't know what it's made out of. A very special compound, I can promise you. If he tries to experiment on it, it is almost fully certain that he will cause fatal damage."

Scar covered his mouth with his hand, a strange feeling of nausea creeping up on him. That… wasn't what he'd expected.

But Miles just seemed to go on talking like it wasn't the most ugly thing he'd heard. "And who will have the remote to this chip?"

"Myself," Mustang pulled out two black sticks the size of a thumb, and flipped the lid off one of them. A tiny numberpad was revealed, along with a little green light that flickered weakly. He flicked this one at Miles, who caught it gingerly. "And Major Miles. Or should I say, Lt. Colonel?"

Miles didn't know what to say. He just received a switch to kill someone and got promoted at the same time. "I, sir."

"The ceremony will come later, this is just a heads up," Mustang stopped Miles before he could salute. "After all, you'll be under an insane amount of responsibility and pressure in Ishval. I can understand that. I want you to have the proper authority to do the things you need to do. Ah, and the remote." He looked at the small thing that remained in his own hand. "The battery is good for fifty years. I wouldn't worry about it. There is a four number pass, and then you'd need to press the 'pound' button here." He glanced quickly at Scar and then away again.

Scar understood. Mustang didn't want him to know the number.

It would be simply too easy. To take the remote from where Miles keeps it. To flip open the cover. To input the numbers- only four. Pound.

 _Bam._

"Does that… set you at ease?" Hawkeye asked him quietly while Miles and Mustang moved off to one side to converse in a low tone, probably Miles was being given the password. Hawkeye was doing a good job of distracting him so he couldn't overhear.

"I suppose." Scar looked down at his feet, somehow ashamed. "But this… makes me feel a different kind of unease." He hoped she could understand, because he really didn't want to explain how he felt. He wasn't ready to admit that somehow, a bit of him felt sorry for Kimblee.

As always, Hawkeye spoke the language of eye contact and nodded sadly. "It's what has to be done. Kimblee himself agreed to it. It wasn't forced onto him."

"But what choice did he have?" Scar found himself arguing back, "he still faces the death penalty. He can't exactly refuse."

"I… don't think Kimblee is much afraid of death…" A strange look settled over her face. "I too sat on that committee. He… is a strange creature. We can't tell what his motivations are. I don't think the chip really scares him. To be honest, it's just a precaution to keep him under control in case… anything happens."

That made Scar feel less bad for Kimblee, but there was the added question of his muddled motivations. Scar didn't want someone with even an inkling of bad intention anywhere near Ishvalans. "And yet… you approved his appeal."

"As I said," the Captain shook her head as she spoke, almost like she was incredulous. "I don't quite understand him myself. I'm not sure anyone can. But we have no reason to doubt him at the moment, and… there _is_ the chip. I'm personally more concerned about _you."_

"Me?"

"Try not to let him distract you. Same goes for Ma- Lt. Colonel Miles. You'll both be tested." _Test._ The word crawled lazily over Scar's vision, a bug with many legs. _Test._ Hawkeye was still speaking, "But, as you know, we need skilled alchemists to help re-build what they… _we_ destroyed."

Though Scar had originally been against recruiting state alchemists to aid in reconstruction, Miles managed to convince him that funding, time, and personnel were not unlimited resources for the project, and Mustang did have a time frame in mind for at least major infrastructures and institutions to be re-built. The Flame alchemist, in his mission statement, proposed that hospitals, schools, churches, and other basic institutions should be up and running throughout all the districts of Ishval in ten years' time, and such a timing would be impossible to meet with raw manpower, even with Ishvalans and Amestrians working together. The best-case scenario was to have Ishval restored and running economically and culturally as independently as possible in thirty years, becoming an official trading point between Amestris and Xing, just like it once was. It was Mustang's intent then to draw out the majority of military force and allow Ishval to function semi-autonomously under Amestrian administration.

It wasn't total restoration, but Scar was counting his blessings. Ishval was a land of scattered tribal conflicts before they started to settle under the control of Amestrians. Now that Scar had seen the sense of a settled life, he couldn't help but grasp at the hope that perhaps life in New Ishval wouldn't be so bad under Mustang's administration. Knowing what he did now about what the Homunculi had done, Scar was more willing to re-consider his previous views on the Amestrians. He just wasn't sure if the other Ishvalans would come to the same conclusion- they couldn't know about everything that happened. "I understand."

Hawkeye gifted Scar with one of her rare genuine smiles. "And to think, in two and half weeks you'll be in Ishval! Isn't that exciting!"

 _Yes. But…_ "I want to see him."

The smile dropped. "I see."

Miles and Mustang had finished their conversation, and were now peering at him, probably trying to gauge if he would try to kill Kimblee with his bare hands or not. "I won't hurt him," Scar tried to assure them, "I'm just… curious. And I want to understand." He wanted to speak to the bastard face to face.

"Understand?" Mustang shrugged, "good luck."

* * *

 **Kimblee**

Things looked tilted again.

Kimblee saw himself in a mirror a few minutes ago, and a part of him panicked. It was almost unbelievable that he had visible limits, that his body had outlines and crevices and that hair grew from his head. Sometimes he didn't feel like Kimblee at all. The name didn't mean much to him. It was his mother's maiden name. He much preferred to be called Crimson, or Crimson Lotus if one was being exceptionally flattering.

 _Ah, how good it was to be called Crimson._ A color that, like Kimblee, drew attention to itself by nature, knowing it could not be resisted. The dance of blood, the song of desire. How beautiful crimson was when it splashed and dripped, cloaking a willing surface with its hungry and passionate being! Wherever crimson spilled, wherever Kimblee went, eyes widened and heartbeats quickened. And a lotus- _how beautiful!_ If Kimblee were to be a flower, he'd probably be a lotus. After all, the biggest and most perfect lotus flowers grew from the stagnant and putrid mud of a pond, disgustingly happy for no fucking reason.

Most of the time, Kimblee was so pre-occupied with his _is_ that he forgot he had a _being_. He didn't believe this was particularly abnormal; surely everyone came to this moment once in a while. Just not everyone welcomed it as the Crimson alchemist did. After all, he'd lived inside things beyond himself. And of course he wasn't psychotic- what sort of sane human chose to only live within himself? Solf J. Kimblee lived and he died repeatedly, to every past moment, to every person he'd ever killed. That was why, even without a philosopher's stone, Kimblee was an immortal being.

But… he wasn't so immortal as to accept a fist coming straight at him. He sidestepped Scar's giant fist with little difficulty, but the quick movement caused a slight episode of morphine-induced vertigo to surge through his body. Kimblee lost balance, falling onto his cot with nausea clamoring in his belly.

The Ishvalan man was just as Kimblee remembered. A huge mountain of a creature, with eyes like fire. Crimson. "To what do I owe the honor?" Kimblee was still clad in a hospital gown, and he thought he looked quite ridiculous. After much yelling, he'd managed to get them to remove the IVs and all the silly things they stuck onto him. Now he was just waiting for the anesthetics to finish its party.

"I want to know why you aren't dead. The Elric brothers said a lion tore your throat out." Scar grabbed the front of Kimblee's green gown, the material crinkling between his fingers. From the edge of the doorway where Scar entered, Kimblee could see the tip of a polished leather boot. He wondered who that was.

Scar, sensing that Kimblee wasn't even paying attention to him, shook the pale man harder until the Crimson alchemist winced, a bolt of pain shooting up his ribs. "Hey hey, easy," he gently tapped on Scar's muscular forearm that was practically dragging him up from the bed.

The touch was soft, but to Scar it must have felt like a barb. The Ishvalan released him. Kimblee dropped back onto his cot. After regaining his breath, the alchemist shrugged casually and leaned back onto his pillows, making himself comfortable. "I don't know how I'm alive. I seem to remember dying quite clearly. I remember now that I was consumed by a homunculus!" Scar's expression rendered as that of increasing rage. "Why do you seem so mad, priest?"

"Your existence is a cruel joke," Scar ground out, his hands balled into tight fists. It was then that Kimblee took notice of his left arm, inked with the white transmutation diagram of reconstruction.

"Ah, let me see that tattoo." The Crimson alchemist reached out with those long fingers, like he'd known Scar forever and they weren't just trying to kill each other just over a month ago.

"No," Scar drew his arm back, thoroughly disturbed at the way Kimblee was behaving. _Nobody's ever asked to see it._

Said man clicked his tongue to his teeth. _Tsk tsk tsk._ "How childish." As he shook his head, his long black hair fell around his face. With a practiced movement, Kimblee's hand reached up and roped his hair back behind his shoulders. He noticed the scarred man was staring.

"You're not normal."

"How so? And sit down, won't you?" Kimblee gestured to the foot of his cot, smiling in that way that made his eyes briefly close in contentment. "Please," he added, easily- like it was nothing at all.

Reluctantly, the Ishvalan sat. His weight on the other end of the cot raised Kimblee up an inch or two.

"And you can come in too," Kimblee called towards the open door, "don't stand there like a moron, Major." Like a good dog, Miles entered when called and gave a long hard look at Kimblee.

"This is a familiar sight, Crimson," Miles was all stern and businesslike as usual. He hadn't determined yet how he should react to Kimblee. Despite his general dislike for Kimblee as a person, he didn't have a feud with the man like Scar did. He noticed the blue and white state uniform hanging on a chair in the corner of the room- the same uniform he wore, but probably two or three sizes smaller.

"Sure, sure." Kimblee waved. "But don't sit. If the both of you sit I'll be catapulted to Xing."

Scar glared.

"So," the Crimson alchemist nudged Scar's leg with his foot. The man gave a start. Kimblee smiled. It was so easy to rile him up. How fun. "Let me see that tattoo." Ever the gentleman, Kimblee never went anywhere without his manners. "Please."

"Maybe one day," Scar turned his back towards Kimblee, still not ready to oblige the man. For Scar, it was too much, too soon. He'd taken weeks to become something almost like friends with Miles, and even then he'd be hesitant to offer him a glimpse of his brother's work. Allowing Kimblee to have the run of it was out of the question.

"One day… In Ishval?" The name rolled of his tongue easily, smoothly. Scar flinched.

Miles' brows furrowed. "I hope you plan on behaving yourself, Kimblee."

"I don't plan on anything," Kimblee stretched on the cot, his foot nudging Scar's leg again. He very much enjoyed watching the man twitch, obviously caught between his need to get away and his desire to appear like it didn't bother him. "I'll do what I'm told, Major." He was a major once. Those were great times. Now he didn't have a rank any more. He was just Kimblee.

Scar understood now what Hawkeye meant, that the man was hard to read. "Why?" he asked, borderline desperate for a coherent answer. "Why do you want to go back if you don't care about dying? Wouldn't it be more in line with your principles to accept death than to bother spending the rest of your life re-building what you hated?" Scar had to understand. Because Kimblee _must_ have hated Ishval and the Ishvalans. Otherwise he could not comprehend how someone could bring himself to do the kind of things Kimblee had done. The Crimson alchemist's atrocities extended far beyond what was ordered of him.

Meanwhile, Kimblee was thoroughly taken aback by the question. He'd honestly never thought of the possibility of accepting death instead of appealing for the mission. _Principles._ Kimblee remembered now, what Alphonse Elric had said. That in order for humanity to progress, they must seek a possibility without being bound by principles. Yet that in itself was a principle. Life was full of such paradoxes. "But… that's no fun. I already died once." He laughed a little, the memory of it making him a little giddy as it always did. "Plus, I'm not sure what you mean by principles. I don't live by _principles_. As you must know by now, human life is cheap. Principles don't serve me; I can't afford that luxury."

While Scar was trying to digest what Kimblee had said, Miles seemed to understand. The Major peered down at his Ishvalan partner, realizing that Scar's previous conceptions of Kimblee, built up by years of pent up hatred and resentment, was stopping him from understanding what the man was saying. It was interesting how human nature worked. Kimblee… was a different thing altogether. He didn't think or live like the average person. To Miles, it was… _disturbingly refreshing_.

"That tattoo on your arm," Kimblee pointed, "it's to counteract the destruction sigils on your right arm, correct? It's the re-construction half of the equation." When there was no response, the Crimson alchemist resumed, "I know because the sigils on my hands work the same way." He opened his palms so Scar could see. "Sun, moon, earth, air, fire, water, as above, so below. As within, so without. People tend to think of them as opposites, but in fact they are parts of a whole, one and the same." Kimblee smiled at the way Scar's face contorted. The man was so expressive. _So angry_. So far from the devout Ishvalan monk he once must have been, Kimblee mused. He took a certain bit of pride in knowing that Scar blamed him. "Those are words from your prayer, aren't they?"

Like a riled snake, Scar lashed out with a venomous tone. "What the fuck are you on about?"

"The three pillars of alchemy." Kimblee raised three fingers and lowered them one by one. Patiently, like teaching a child how to count. "Understanding. Destruction. Reconstruction." He leaned forward, the bedsheets crinkling and his body visibly straining from the effort. "Before I deployed to Ishval, I spent a year and a half learning all I could about the country and the people. Navasta, avum-Ishvala!" _Blessings, priest of Ishvala!_

"Impossible," Scar cut in, horrified that those words found their way out of Kimblee, "a monster like you-" Miles held him back with a solid grip. _Navasta_ , the singular Ishvalan greeting and farewell. _Navasti_ was the plural form. Miles himself rarely heard it in his childhood, but his grandfather used to mutter it to his father before mounting ethnic tensions made the word taste sour on his lips.

But Kimblee went on like he hadn't even heard. "Destruction was the next step, as you know very well. I tell you, I only enjoyed it so much because I understood what I was doing." Shameless, remorseless. "And now, you ask me, what is left?" He raised his right had, the one marked with the sun sigil. "Reconstruction, of course. And I'll probably enjoy this one best." He wasn't going to Ishval with the intent of paying for his past crimes, like those other fools were. To Kimblee, the notion of crimes and retribution and clearing one's conscience were merely illusions. He didn't have a speck of dirt on his conscience. Kimblee lived every moment and never wished he were anywhere else- he had no regrets to speak of. "It'll be fun." He finished. "I simply want to see if it can be done. That's all. Don't worry- the killing's done. I'm not a soldier any more, and I stick to my resolve."

"I see," Miles nodded, swallowing uneasily, and Kimblee smiled at him. He was smiling much more often now, now that his soul had tasted death. He used to be a little afraid of it. But now he wasn't. In that final glorious moment, he'd become a star, a comet. He felt himself soaring through the sky, flooding it with vibrant colors and leaving behind a trail of fire. As if all his life he'd felt like a raisin, at the moment of his death he became a huge and luscious grape. It was incredible- the sound of his soul fragmenting was like the culmination of the most perfect of explosions. Now, life was worth living anew if not only to live for that moment to come again. Kimblee never thought about suicide; that simply wouldn't feel the same. Absently, he felt at the spot under his gown where the chip had been implanted. His fingers felt that the spot was hot, ridged with stitches, but he couldn't feel much else due to the anesthetics. It was a great idea; he had to commend Mustang for thinking it up. He hadn't thought that the man would actually work up the guts for something like this.

"I don't…" Scar was looking at his hands, then at the tattoos that ran up his forearms and biceps. He couldn't meet Kimblee's eyes. "Im… impossible." His chest hurt with the wrongness of it.

"Is that all you'd come to ask, avum-Ishvala?" The words rolled off like the name of a friend. It had been so long since Scar was called that.

"Yes," he relented, mentally exhausted and utterly confused. Miles put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Yes, that's all."

"We'll be going," Miles said, paused, then added cautiously, "Kimblee."

"I'll report to you when I'm better," the alchemist waved at them, ushering them off. "Won't be long. _Navasti._ "

* * *

 **Dr. Marcoh**

It wouldn't be long now. The advance party had arrived in the ruins of Ishval, where a huge area had been cleared of debris and cordoned off by military reconnaissance. The construction of what would become their base camp in the heart of the Kanda province was going well, and in five days the rest of the troops would mobilize and begin to pour into Ishval. Miles and Mustang decided it would be best to begin the huge restoration where Scar had his roots, and branch out from there. After all, Kanda was the most viable starting point- Gunja was a sweltering dry desert with few natural resources and little hope of agriculture. Daliha was said to be a lush farmland, but almost all the Dalihans perished in the extermination simply because they'd all _surrendered_. Unlike the Gunjans who formed resistance forces and the Kandans who fought back, the Dalihans surrendered themselves in the belief that they would ascend to Ishvala's kingdom. The only viable starting point was Kanda.

Marcoh thought it was a great idea. Though he didn't miss the heat and incessant dust storms, Marcoh had been waiting for this chance to make things right for nearly a decade.

They all huddled into Miles' unit lines, men and women in their state uniforms boasting a gold patch with the letters 'IRF' stitched in bright red letters for _Ishval Restoration Force._ They were now officially their own unit, consisting of some sixty men and administratively independent under Lt. Colonel Miles' command. Marcoh donned his uniform proudly for the first time in years.

He spent his time compiling his supplies with the help of Sgt Amina Cross and Lt Havoc, and lecturing his troupe of trainee medics and field doctors. The unit lines, made up of a string of cubicles and conference rooms along with a huge common space, emanated a constant buzz as activity reached a feverish pace. Marcoh rarely had time to himself now, always being tugged this way and that.

Miles and Scar spent their time debating over how best to approach various aspects of the restoration. Their topics ranged from what food should be prepared and offered to the Ishvalans to the way the buildings should be reconstructed. Miles intended for the buildings to be re-built in the most practical way, but Scar was torn between practicality and nostalgia, yearning to see his province exactly as it once was.

"If Amestris re-builds Ishval with its own style of architecture and infrastructure, is it really Ishval at all?" Scar had argued, and Miles had to reconsider his plans once more. Marcoh found it funny that after all the small things were decided and prepared, the IRF still found it difficult to grasp the big picture. Recently they'd allowed Kimblee into Miles' office to join the discussions. After it was firmly established that the man had a fairly extensive factual knowledge base of former Ishvalan civilization and history, even Scar grudgingly began to appreciate his input. But alas, those were not Marcoh's problems.

Miles' operational goals included cultural sensitivity, and so Marcoh now spent part of his days researching traditional Ishvalan medicine and native medicinal plant species. He was leaning over some books in his cramped cubicle when Kimblee strode into the unit lines, yelling to clear his way while precariously balancing a huge tray of coffees. Cheers went up all throughout the office.

Marcoh couldn't help but smile a little, amazed. It wasn't like this at first, of course. But aside from him, Miles, and Scar, most of the soldiers and officers in the IRF had no prior experience with Kimblee except perhaps having heard the stories of his war crimes. And even then, technically Kimblee was legally excused under the State Alchemist Reparation Clause, and it was hard to despise a person who brought you coffee in the morning.

Warrant Officer Ross was always the first to waddle out of his own office, smiling and relieved that he didn't have to walk all the way down to the first floor to purchase his favorite heart-attack inducing coffee with four creams four sugars. It wasn't long until the black haired alchemist was swamped by a groggy horde, and Marcoh stuck a scrap piece of paper into his book to mark his place. Before long, he found himself walking over towards Kimblee and helping him hand out the morning coffees, as was his routine. There were so many, Kimblee always needed help to avoid being the victim of a stampede. Marcoh didn't mind helping Kimblee. He'd needed a bit of time to adjust at first, but if one could forget that the things Kimblee had done, he was a surprisingly pleasant person to be around sometimes.

Marcoh loved handing out coffees in the morning. He got to see everyone's faces at once while they were the happiest. It was a great way of becoming acquainted with some of the members of the IRF that crammed themselves in their cubicles all day and only emerged to take their morning coffee. At first Miles delegated the duty to Kimblee as a way of getting the man out of his hair in the mornings, but Kimblee took to the task with such gusto that it became a daily anticipated event.

"Warrant Ross," Marcoh passed the Chief Clerk's coffee to his waiting hand. Ross' coffee was always the most easily identified. It was by far the largest of the tray.

Sgt Cross, the Quartermaster, preferred a medium black with milk.

Lt Havoc, the Logistic head of Supply, took his with two creams and two sugars.

Captain Veiras, the head of Transport, was a brutish looking man with surprisingly sophisticated tastes, and liked a good earl grey with a squeeze of lemon. "I'm not getting you any damn lemons," Kimblee had deadpanned on the first day, so Veiras had to settle for just plain earl grey.

Juniper the head cook didn't like coffee or tea at all, preferring to sip solemnly at some sort of green pulp that she made every morning. Marcoh couldn't imagine starting his day like that.

The doctor took solace in a small black coffee, no milk nor sugar. He always thought the bitterness made everything else taste sweeter.

Miles preferred a shot of espresso just on its own. The face he made when he drank it was like throwing back a shot of hard liquor.

Scar hated the taste and smell of coffee, having never grown up with it in Ishval. He could be coaxed into taking a bit of tea, but he adamantly refused to have anything at all if it was Kimblee delivering it. So he went thirsty every morning.

Kimblee seemed to be a mixed bag. Every day he appeared with something different, sometimes from the café, sometimes from the vending machine. Today he got himself some sort of strange fruit drink with floating chunks in it.

It was hard for the Doctor to wrap his mind around returning to Ishval in only a few days' time.

"How goes the research?" Kimblee stretched, cracking his neck. Marcoh's eyes were drawn immediately to the feint scars around the Crimson alchemist's neck, from the wound that pierced his windpipe. It was an injury that should have been impossible to survive. When Marcoh used the philosopher's stone to heal Heinkel of his injuries, he'd done it out of desperation that the chimera could kill the Mad Bomber. For a few weeks, his heart was at ease. He imagined the souls of the dead Ishvalans, killed by him and Kimblee, rejoicing at the alchemist's death.

But… what about him? What about all those men and women he transmuted, ripping their souls form their screaming bodies? How many souls yearned for the doctor's death?

There was a time and place to revisit old memories. Marcoh blinked the thoughts away, tucked them into his mind's periphery. "I've found documents on the native plants to the area, which will be helpful for us. Some Ishvalans will want to be treated with their own traditional medicines." He sat at his desk, sipping at his coffee and flipping the pages of the book he was just reading. "Although, it does seem that there is a significantly spiritual element to their understanding of medicine that I'm not sure we can accommodate."

"Can you?" Kimblee challenged, leaning against the chest-height walls of Marcoh's cubicle, "more like _should_ you? Would you let someone die if they refused medicine in favor of praying to their God?"

The doctor considered it. "No," he said at last, "when I became a doctor, I took an oath. The oath was that I would do everything in my power to prevent harm from coming to the patient. Cultural sensitivity is one thing, but it doesn't mean anything if the patient dies."

"Oath, huh? And how many times had you gone against that oath?"

Marcoh fell silent, unsure if Kimblee was mocking him. When Kimblee was still a Major during the Ishvalan extermination, Marcoh had gotten used to deferring to the man. But now, things had changed. Slowly, with immense surety, Marcoh met his eyes to Kimblee's. "…It's not too late to start again."

A chuckle. Kimblee's cold eyes regarded Marcoh with a look of appraisal. Even if he were technically subordinate to Marcoh now, Kimblee would never act it. The Doctor wasn't about to complain- he liked this Kimblee more than the Mad Bomber. "I admire your tenacity," he admitted, nodding his approval. "To do your job to the utmost, to the complete end… Even if it costs you your life. Just like the Rockbells."

 _Ah._ Marcoh had to look away. The guilt was a physical thing, nudging its way back into Marcoh's line of sight. "I remember the Rockbells. Dr. Sarah Rockbell was my colleague at one time. She was an incredible woman with the most skilled pair of hands. An excellent surgeon." Then the doctor's face darkened. It was a shame what had happened to them. What a small world this was.

When Marcoh first discovered that Scar was the one who'd killed the Rockbells, a heavy wave of grief washed over him. In the back of his mind, the doctor knew that if he hadn't agreed to perform the project that created the philosopher's stone that went into Kimblee's hands… if Kimblee hadn't killed Scar's family and left him alive… then maybe Scar wouldn't have killed the Rockbells. Sarah Rockbell, formerly Sarah Elliot… The young woman that kept her eyes open for everything but never noticed how many times Marcoh looked her way. He could watch her forever and never be tired of her movements, so fluid and careful they were. She was not particularly good at organization, and liked to react to things as they occurred. Yet her ability to respond was incredible. Marcoh was a planner. He was never impulsive nor particularly brave in his youth.

That was why he lost Sarah to Yuriy Rockbell, who was always one step ahead of him, always willing to go the extra mile to make a fool of himself just to make her laugh.

"Hey," Kimblee's voice pulled Marcoh from his memories. "It's not your fault."

"That's right," Marcoh was shaking, and wheeled his chair around so Kimblee wouldn't see the way his ruined face twitched and strained with the effort of holding back tears. "That's right, it's yours." He regretted the words as soon as he said them. He knew better, damn it.

"Don't be a fool," came the inevitable reply, and a tissue was being shoved at him. Marcoh didn't take it. He let it slowly flutter to his desk to join with the scraps of paper that littered it. "It's not my fault either, and it's not Scar's. There's no such thing as fault, people die when they die and there's nothing that can be done about it."

"That's not true. If… if I hadn't done those experiments on the Ishvalans… if I hadn't…" even after all these years of trying to come to terms with what he'd done, having to vocalize it made it all come back a thousand times worse.

A shadow came looming over his desk. Marcoh saw it from the corner of his eye. It was a familiar shadow, and a familiar voice accompanied it. "Doctor Marcoh, my friend, there's no use of grieving the past now."

 _My friend._ Oh, _God._

He turned away and hunched so no one could see his moment of weakness. Luckily, the rest of the unit didn't seem to realize anything was wrong, and carried out with their morning errands without sparing a glance into Marcoh's cramped cubicle where the doctor must be going over some research with the Crimson alchemist and the scarred man.

"What the fuck did you do to him?" Scar hissed at Kimblee, who shrugged and pursed his lips but didn't take his eyes off of Marcoh.

"Language, language, _avum_."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Do you pray to Ishvala with that mouth?"

Incredulous, Marcoh started to laugh, effectively silencing the two men behind him who were starting to bicker like children. "Now, now," the doctor turned around and wiped at the edges of his eyes with the tissue on his table. "I'm, I'm fine. Scar, my friend, you're right that there is no point of hanging onto the past now. So if I will let go of my guilt and forgive myself to allow myself to move on…" he motioned towards Kimblee. "Won't you let go of what Kimblee has done?"

"I won't," Scar growled low with a voice like gravel. "I won't forgive him. He doesn't deserve it."

"Doesn't have anything to do with me," Kimblee shot back, looking bored of the conversation that always seemed to end the same way with Scar.

"He's… right," Marcoh added, much to Scar's surprise. The doctor summoned every ounce of kindness he still had in his old bones and tried to channel them through the warmth of his gaze. If anything, the former Ishvalan priest seemed to feel it. If Scar couldn't get over his animosity against Kimblee, their project wouldn't go very far. Besides- if it weren't for Marcoh's work in creating the actual philosopher's stone used in the extermination, Kimblee wouldn't have been able to do what he'd done. He felt like he had to take control of the situation. Like always, Marcoh was never satisfied with minding his own business. "Please, Scar. I know what kind of man you really are. Forgive him so _you_ can move on." _Forgive him so you can forgive yourself, so you can forgive me._

 _Please._

Scar just stood there, silent and rigid.

Kimblee twisted open the cap to his drink and took a sip. Two.

Still no response from Scar.

The moment of truth had come and gone. Marcoh felt his shoulders slump, disappointment chilling him to the core. The warmth was no more- he'd given it all to Scar and the man had taken it and thrown it to the wind.

Kimblee took another sip. "This is gross." He capped the bottle and turned towards the trash bin, looking like he was going to try and lob it in.

Scar's hand shot out and grabbed Kimblee's wrist. "Don't."

Marcoh gaped- Scar was gripping onto Kimblee with his right arm, that arm of destruction. The tattoos faintly glowed a little, then faded. But nothing happened.

"Don't," Scar said again, expressionless, and let go of the alchemist. "I'll take it. Don't waste food."

Wordlessly, Kimblee handed over the fruit drink.

Slowly, that warmth came back. Marcoh settled back into his chair with a satisfied smile on his lips. Watching Scar and Kimblee somewhat get along gave him hope that he too would be accepted by the rest of the Ishvalans. It made him want to chase that dangerous dream that maybe- just maybe, Ishvalans and Amestrians could one day be friendly again with one another, memories of bloodshed long gone.

There was hope still. It was not yet too late for a new promised day.

* * *

End Ch. 3

* * *

 _They arrive in Ishval in the next chapter. Woo!_

 _I thought about how Mustang could logically and safely allow Kimblee to go to Ishval, and this feels just extreme enough to work._

 _There is a LOT of boring preparation before an operation like the Ishval Restoration. I considered skipping it, then decided not to because I feel it gives a sense to the scope of the mission, and it just feels wrong to me because there's a HUGE amount of effort the military puts into Ops prep. I feel it also helps to build some of the Amestrian military OCs a little before they arrive in Ishval. These are minor OCs; a major OC will be introduced next chapter._

 _I realize the pace of my updates has kind of been crazy. I drafted the first few chapters while I was on a trip, and I want to get what I have put up. I'm leaving soon to take a course for the military, and I'm not sure if the schedule would allow for writing and posting further updates. Hopefully there is time and not much changes._


	4. Chapter 4

**Isle**

According to tradition, when a woman was with child, she was closest to God. In the womb of the mother, the child is cradled in the warm palms of Ishvalah, next to His breast. And when the child was born, ten thousand veils of darkness separated him or her from the almighty Creator. For this reason, every baby was born crying, for its soul grieved the impermeable distance that divided him or her from God's light. The mother, too, fell from the grace of God and bled monthly once more, marking her as unclean.

Before Isle became the wife of the Chieftan of Kanda, she was called Isle of Dasht. The people of Dasht were known for their sorcery, and were regarded as deviants by many Ishvalan tribes. The Dasht practiced a different interpretation of Ishvala's teachings, and were constantly in war over the larger sects that despised their use of magic. Then, a series of strangely coincidental droughts and sandstorms killed many of their tribe, forcing them to offer Isle in marriage in order to merge their dwindling tribe with that of the larger tribe of Lut. "Divine punishment," the people of Lut had called it, but they were not reluctant at all to take the Dasht people in- after all, they were a rare merchant tribe native to Kanda, and it was said that its people had gold for blood. The Dasht people rode sleek horses that crossed the desert with manes rippling like water, and they brought piles of precious balsam, heaps of crimson saffron, clay pots full of spices so yellow like the face of the sun. In exchange for refuge, the people of Dasht made Kanda the richest Ishvalan province overnight.

Isle used to practice sorcery, just like her mother did, but she had to give it up when she married the son of Lut's chieftan. Her mother's rings, those gorgeous brass bands inscribed with magical circles and sigils that allowed her to manipulate the elements to her will, were melted down. No more making fire from nothing, no more bending metals with a touch of the hand…

When the Chiefdom of Kanda fell to the Lut tribe, they outlawed sorcery and made it punishable by stoning. Yet "Kanda" was a new concept to the tribes that were conquered by Amestrian might. The Amestrians forced Isle and her clan into the newly named district and raised walls around them, forced them to live alongside rival tribes, harvest crops, build homes. It was a tense time for them all.

Yet, in those days, the land was quiet with the sound of the wind.

That was thirty years ago, a decade before Amestrian bombs replaced the stars in the sky, and two decades before the devastating extermination that left nothing but shrapnel and bones behind.

Twenty-six years ago, Isle brought a daughter into the world. The priests were stunned; after all, they had divined that the child would be a boy; strong and virile with the heart of a warrior like his father.

"The child was of fire," she remembered old man Juriv muttering back and forth, the sweat beading and rolling down his brow. "How is it possible that it is a girl?"

And the girl was born with a caul over her face. The healers thought she was dead.

 _Good_ , Isle remembered thinking, traitorously, _let it be dead._ She couldn't bear to see her daughter buried alive in the sand like it was once custom in her tribe.

Old man Juriv, _avum-Ishvala_ , peeled back the caul, slick with blood, and saw that the child had a set of feral red eyes. "A lion," Juriv shook with the visions that crowded his head, pushing and consuming one another for dominance. "This child is a lion, a beast."

"No," Isle remembered choking, reaching helplessly for her daughter but being unable to sit up for the loss of blood. Her vision swam in and out, and nausea rolled up her spine.

Juriv watched the child, eyes open and wild, reach out to grip at his long beard. A droplet of his sweat fell on her face, and the girl didn't cry. She was obviously breathing, he could tell. But he'd never, _ever_ seen a child who wasn't born crying. A stone dropped in the pit of his stomach.

"That's my daughter," Isle insisted, reaching for the baby.

Yet the priest could only look upon the young mother with a mix of pity and fear, handing over the lion-child of fire to her weary mother. "Are you sure?"

 _Are you sure?_ The words haunted her for years.

The Chieftan named the child Kaysi. _Kays_ , which meant feral. The term was used to describe animals and beasts, and sometimes the demons of legend. Isle could tell that her husband was terrified of the child, just as he was terrified of the tattoo on the back of her neck- a five pointed star contained in a circle. Tattoos were celebrated amongst the people of Dasht, but were looked down on as an insult to Ishvala's creation in almost every other clan. Isle could tell by how her husband couldn't even look at their daughter. He was still _scared_ of what the priests warned him.

They said she was a curse.

That's when everything went wrong.

Isle never bled again. She was only eighteen years old.

Kaysi's hair grew in silvery-white like that of her mother and father, but with a strange brownish tint that sometimes appeared orange in the sun. The girl rarely cried. Rumors erupted and spread throughout Kanda; that Kaysi was a bastard child, or that Isle was a witch who'd consorted with a _kiyyiah_ , a demon. The Chieftan was forced to annul his marriage to his wife on grounds of infidelity of which he had no evidence but for the color of her daughter's hair, and exiled them both to a ramshackle hut in Kanda's poorest district, far from her people that were so known for finding ways to become wealthy.

There they spat at her and called her the Witch of Dasht, and her daughter the Wild Child of Dasht. Isle herself could pay no mind to the names they called her, but her heart broke every time she saw her daughter harassed in the streets. The boys pulled her by her hair and would cut some of it off. The girls kicked her and dumped their wastebuckets on her. One time a young boy tried to set her on fire. No one seemed to remember that her mother was once the honored wife of the Chieftan. After all, he'd already taken a new woman to bed.

Isle had no choice but to sacrifice herself to protect her daughter.

She embraced her cursed name and fully transformed into the Witch of Dasht, protecting her daughter in a shroud of her native tribal magic that cast fear into the hearts of all who looked upon her. Her name became a dreaded whisper in the dark alleyways- the men cast their eyes away for fear of becoming cursed. The women, however, whispered her name in reverence. Isle, the witch of Dasht. Isle, who could visit the Next World in her dreams. Isle, the woman who could kill a man with a look. Isle, who couldn't bleed herself, but could make a hundred and one concoctions to bring down the moon.

With a witch for a mother, Kaysi was finally able to walk the streets alone without being attacked for her cursed birth. The girl had learned to fight back, of course, but Kanda wasn't like the tribe Isle was raised in. Here, dark rumors and a bad reputation couldn't be fought with brute strength and fast daggers.

So Isle took all the darkness, fear, and hatred into herself. She lived with half of her soul ransomed to hell so her daughter could live in light and walk with heaven under her feet.

And then the civil wars came.

The mountains came alive at night, bursting forth with the colorful corona of exploding shells. Each day rockets and shells struck their province with devastating unpredictability. Each night she rubbed powdered snake skin onto her daughter's feet in hopes that she could sneak undetected from under Death's seeking hand. Those were memories she'd rather not revisit.

But no mother, not even a witch, was all powerful. Kaysi ran away to fight with the resistance forces twelve years ago, and Isle hadn't seen her wild child since.

So when the Ishvalan restoration project revealed itself on public news, Isle knew she had to return.

After all, she was the Witch of Dasht, living in the slums of Amestris. However, Ishval was a ruin and Isle knew full well that she might not even live to see it cleared of death. Yet she still longed once more to feel the hot glare of the sun, to touch the sky that was so different above the desert, to breathe the air after monsoon season. The light over Ishval was different from what she saw in Amestris; in Ishval, the sun's rays joined with the hot air in a dreamlike conspiracy, cruelly pulling the jagged peaks of faraway snow-capped mountains to almost within walking distance...

And, servant of hell that she was, she was determined to find the girl who walked with heaven under her feet.

* * *

 **Miles**

For a man who used to easily and proudly claim Ishvalan heritage, the Lt. Colonel found himself hesitating for the first time.

They arrived by trooplift vehicles, huge military trucks that could seat up to thirty men with all their kit. Supply trucks, administrative vehicles, and civilian patterned vehicles also arrived one after the other, leaving behind deep ruts in the dirt and sand. The rumbling of truck engines was a song that lasted day and night. The camp was a depressing looking thing, filled with tents both big and small. Mess tents, supply tents, ablutions tents, a field hospital tent, a command point tent, a vehicle repair tent, and a giant resting tent made up the camp's center. Soldiers' barracks were set up to one side of the camp, and Ishvalan sleeping tents on another.

Immediately, Sgt Cross and Lt. Havoc made their way to the enormous domed company supply tent, yelling that crates weren't being arranged the way they'd wanted. WO Ross settled into the Command Post and fanned himself with a scrap piece of paper, complaining profusely. Juniper began ground guiding the mobile kitchen trailer to the spot behind the mess tent. Capt. Veiras set off to inspect the state of what vehicles were arriving, and Dr. Marcoh was running back and forth carrying bins of tools to the field hospital. Miles' own feet refused to move, the Lt. Colonel just taking in the flurry of activity around him.

He couldn't believe how hot it was in Ishval. Since stepping out of his air-conditioned vehicle, he felt the heat slam into him like a physical wall. He struggled to breathe. He felt his throat being seared by the hot air, his body being baked under his dark blue uniform, the sweat that dripped from his brows clouding his vision and forcing him to wipe at his face every few minutes. The sounds of desert beetles and a myriad of insects started to drown out even the roaring of the trucks at the height of noon. Charred trees, with their withered branches, provided little protection from the sun. It was so hot that it would've been an insult to just call it 'hot'. It was sweltering. It was burning. Miles felt like he needed to claw at something.

Having lived in Briggs for most of his adult life, adjusting to the weather of Central was already a challenge for Miles. He'd mentally prepared for the heat and austerity of Ishval, but his body wasn't ready for the sun's savagery.

Scar, however, came alive under the cerulean blue skies.

…Too bad that the destruction was worse than Miles could ever have imagined.

The camp was a bit of an oasis, a world removed from the terrifying reality around them. The soldiers who'd arrived on advance party greeted Miles with weary, melancholy eyes- eyes of men who'd seen the savage nature of war. They were too young to have fought in the civil war, but Miles shuddered to think of the kind of things they saw when they first arrived here.

He left the Ishvalan monk to see to his own people that had congregated over the last few days. He had no connections with these men and women- some old, some young. Miles didn't belong there. He wouldn't even be able to hold a conversation in Ishvalan. He belonged in the devastation that surrounded them, cordoned off from the returning locals.

He didn't protest when Kimblee offered to give him a tour, simply followed the man past the confines of the camp and into the wasteland that was central Kanda.

Buildings were reduced to rubble and dust, sides of it torn off by explosions. Miles could easily see the signs of transmutation everywhere in the destroyed buildings and roads. While the streets of Amestris were laid out in carefully organized blocks, Ishvalan streets were meandering paths with no specific structure. This somehow made the destruction seem more total. Shattered mud walls were strewn all over the ground like flour spilled from a sack, and everywhere the faces of ruined houses, peppered with bullet holes, seemed to be shrieking.

The sight was surreal to Miles, who'd never been so close to the destruction of a decade of war. He felt completely numb; unconscious even as his feet found their way forward through the carpet of metal shrapnel, spent casings, and shattered brick. Nothing was recognizable anymore. Shops and other buildings were reduced to skeletons. The rusting carcasses of crippled tanks loomed precariously at crazy angles against mounds of rubble. Severed telephone wires hung from mutilated poles, swaying in the breeze.

Kimblee laid out the battlefield for him. With a flick of his hand, the Crimson Lotus alchemist could point out the individual work of several alchemists. This was ground zero where the State Alchemists arrived, and the alchemists dispersed into different directions, taking chunks of Kanda as they went.

Kimblee's own explosions blew giant ragged holes in the walls and foundations of buildings, causing them to collapse under the pressure of gravity. "That was the white schoolhouse, a key mission point," Kimblee recalled, motioning to what remained of the school. Miles felt sick, and it wasn't just because of the heat. The building Kimblee spoke of was completely blown open, and inside most things were burnt to a deep black. Yet in the faint wind Miles' eye caught on the errant pages of a children's coloring book being blown across the charred floor. Over one page was scrawled the shaky but determined handwriting of a young child. The desolation in Miles only grew and grew, and he felt like a trespasser arriving uninvited into some other person's world of unrelenting loss.

"…But when I was issued the stone, I was able to create more powerful aerial explosions that worked on the concept of downward thrust." Kimblee motioned to an area of buildings further in the dusty distance that looked substantially different from what Miles had just seen. If he didn't know any better, the Lt. Colonel would have assumed it was the work of an entirely different alchemist. Using the stone to aid Kimblee's transmutations seemingly resulted in mass distortion of entire blocks of buildings, pushing them over and flattening them as if a giant hand had shoved them down. The huge trail of smothered houses extended towards and into the horizon.

"And that," Kimblee pointed to rows upon rows of what must have once been residential dwellings, now piles of rubble scorched to charcoal. "That was Mustang's work. He was very accurate too. You could walk along the border of where his assigned region ended and see a line with charred earth on one side and untouched ground on the other."

Miles could only nod absently, following Kimblee on a sick tour around the center of the destroyed province.

They came now to a giant wall-like structure, obviously transmuted from the ground based on how the ground sharply sloped downwards into a moat of sorts before the wall. "What in the world?" _A siege wall?_ No, it didn't stretch very long, perhaps only twenty meters.

"Ah, the _artistic alchemy_ of Major Alexander Louis Armstrong." Kimblee kicked a rock down into the deep slope.

"I don't… I don't understand…" Miles couldn't see the point of it.

"Then come with me," Kimblee motioned to him to follow, with an easy smile on his face.

They made the uneasy walk to the other side of the wall, Miles breathing heavily from the weight of the sun on his back. Already he'd removed his tunic and stood now in his white undershirt. Kimblee kept his tunic on, and seemed more used to the heat of Ishval. Yet even he was showing signs of fatigue, each step on the uneven ground growing slower and more strained.

The other side of the wall was lined with skeletons.

If Miles looked closely, he could still see dried bloodstains, faded and cracked by the sun. Most of the skeletons were incomplete- skulls had rolled away, and bones were blown about, buried, and scattered by the shifting sands. The remains of clothing remained, tattered rags chewed to bits by animals and flapping in the slight breeze.

The Crimson alchemist took off his tunic now and slung it over his shoulder, heaving a sigh at the relief. "This is where they shot them all, women and children alike. We spared no one, though I recall Major Armstrong had tried. Look!" He gestured at the face of the wall, and Miles squinted. There he saw what looked like fingernails lodged in the stony surface, no doubt left there by the desperate Ishvalans trying to climb or claw across the wall.

"No more," Miles pleaded now, "please."

The raw scope of the destruction, the loss of human lives that must have occurred here made his bones shake with pity and a sort of existential fear: that humankind was capable of such terror. This was his grandfather's homeland. These streets, which were once so full of life, were now suddenly and cruelly silent.

Yet the Lt. Colonel struggled to connect with the men and women and children who died here. This… wasn't like what Miles had anticipated.

He felt… numb.

"I need a moment," he told Kimblee, throwing his tunic onto a nearby jut of rubble and sitting himself down, his gaze downcast. From here he could see the little ants making their way around his boots.

Crimson only hummed again in affirmation, and Miles watched his lean shadow wander off behind him.

Miles stared hard now at the ants that didn't seem bothered by him intruding on their path. His vision was starting to blur. He forced himself to focus and think only about ants- not about the destruction and heavy energy of death that weighed at him. He watched the ants stop at the edge of his boot, and after a brief moment of confusion they simply found another path around. For some strange reason, that upset him.

Kimblee's voice carried over from somewhere a distance away, "don't force yourself to feel what you don't feel."

Miles crushed a segment of the line of ants under his boot. He ground his foot into the dirt.

The other ants panicked, but then calmly made way around where his boot was now.

He should feel more upset. He should feel hatred, perhaps a desire for vengeance, a drive for change… but instead Miles felt keenly aware of the Amestrian blood that pumped through his veins, and the overwhelming and paralyzing shame.

"How could this have happened?" He cried into the dust, into the unrelenting heat.

Kimblee's shadow moved back into his line of sight like a grotesque vision. "The Ishvalans fought back," he replied simply, "it was a war, Miles, not a one sided invasion. They fought us to the death."

"But how? How could it have gotten so bad? How could _you_ have done this? How could they all have done this? What sort of madness took over you all?"

The Crimson Lotus offered him only a leveled stare. Miles was actually surprised to see a hint of sadness there, or maybe a bit of weariness. "Listen to yourself, Lt. Colonel. You speak with the privilege of a non-combatant, and you don't even know it. There was no madness here. Only humanity."

With a jolt, Miles realized that Kimblee was right. He never _lived_ the war. He would never be able to feel or even understand what Scar felt, what the rest of the returning Ishvalans would inevitably feel and remember when they laid eyes on their destroyed homeland once more. From his position in Briggs and preoccupied with Drachma, he couldn't even come close to understanding what the _Amestrian_ side of the war was like. He felt like he didn't even deserve to be here. He was an imposter.

He would never understand.

He'd refused to assimilate completely into Amestrian culture, and yet he had nowhere else to turn. As much as he might desire, the Ishvalans would never see him as one of them.

"This was my homeland…"

"No, this was your grandfather's homeland. You? You may look Ishvalan, but your soul is Amestrian. Like mine."

Roaring, Miles flung himself around and barreled into Kimblee, knocking the man back. The Crimson alchemist stumbled but caught his balance at the last moment, obviously surprised by the outburst. The shock on his face melted away to a crazed smirk. "Ah, you are unstable. Good. You are changing… transforming… _reacting_."

"Shut your mouth," Miles growled, the heat making him hear every beat of his heart in his ears.

"You're reacting because you're self conscious. What I said is causing a change in your mind." Kimblee had the audacity to reach out and pat Miles on his bare shoulder. The Lt. Colonel roughly shoved the alchemist's tattooed hand off. Kimblee shrugged. "You don't really know who you are. Or maybe you do know, but you don't want to accept it." Crimson turned his back on Miles, bent slowly and picked up his tunic, patting the dust off. He slid it on over his shoulders in a swift and practiced movement, turning his attention back towards Miles and _smiling_. "You haven't found your home yet."

 _He was right, God damn it._ Miles couldn't meet Kimblee's piercing blue eyes. His broad shoulders slumped. "So how? How do I find my home?"

"You don't find your home," came the answer, "you simply know when you have arrived."

* * *

 **Scar**

As soon as his feet touched Ishvalan soil, Scar felt that some part of him, some dormant animal that went to sleep so long ago, was finally stirring again.

The tent where the returning Ishvalans rested in the day was huge, constructed by attaching a dozen ten-man tents together. Cushions, camelhair blankets, woolen quilts, and linen sheets lined the ground where men sat in circles playing little games to past the time and drinking from giant pots of tea. Women sat around with their children, laughing and stitching. The sight of Ishvalans gathered around on blankets was nothing new; it was the heart and soul of every slum.

Even during the constant fighting and the bloodshed, and even as the sabre of mortality threatened to take their lives at any moment, Ishvalans found a way to _live_. It was incredible to Scar how daily life could go in in the midst of a civil war.

Most Amestrians had the misconception that during the war, Ishvalans lived in terror and either fought in the resistance or died. Amestrians listening to the radios heard only the most sensational news, and invariably assumed that Ishval was nothing but barren wasteland of religious extremism. The truth was, there was a more subtle aspect t0 war that only those who lived it could understand.

The truth was, life went on. People simply refused to live their lives in constant fear. Countries, cultures, and the lives of people didn't simply grind to a halt in the presence of war. People still shopped and went to school and worked and made love.

Only once in a while a shell or so landed and a number of people died. Sometimes children died. But, as much as possible, life and society managed to go on in the midst of fighting and death. They had no alternative. They could only accept that death was only a few seconds away at any given time, and make use of what time they had with increased immediacy. The unending resilience of Ishvalan life fought to re-assert itself over the craters of truant shells.

Such was their culture, and even as the fire dimmed from years of war, just one lone spark was needed to rekindle the flame.

In the slums and ghettos of Amestris, laughter and song carried on deep into the night. It wasn't anything close to the raucous celebrations they'd have in Ishval, but the spirit of it was never lost. Men and women were constantly ducking in and out of the giant tent, with more arriving at every hour of the day, so Scar's arrival wasn't noticed. Immediately he searched the faces of the Ishvalans who'd gathered here, and was only a little disappointed that he couldn't make out any familiar faces. He'd expected this. Even in the multiple slums he'd visited, Scar never once found a single survivor he personally knew.

Just as he was about to raise his voice to get the attention of everyone, his gaze settled on a shriveled old man resting against the side of the tent. Scar couldn't believe his eyes.

" _Jai-Avum, jai-avum!_ " High priest! He made a beeline towards him, nearly knocking over a little girl drawing on the ground with a stick. For years Scar had believed his master to be dead. To see him again, alive and clad in the faded red sash of his people, a _shamla_ , brought his heart to his throat and tears to his eyes.

The man known as Scar fell to his knees and took the old man's frail hands into his, and pressed his forehead to those wrinkled palms. "Master, master!"

Old man Juriv narrowed his crow-footed eyes, and in a moment recognition flashed over his face like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. His thin lips parted, showing off his remaining teeth. He rested a shaking hand on Scar's face, as if in disbelief. In this moment of punctuated joy, neither Ishvalan seemed able to find their voices.

A tall woman stepped forward, winding her way around the men seated on cushions, eyeing Scar all the while. Her long black skirt twirled around her feet. "…Buramos?"

Scar jerked. _Ah._ That was a name he hadn't heard in a while.

In Ishval, children were given a name based on their defining attributes, their parents' hopes, or what the priests of Ishvala divined would be their destiny.

Scar was born during a lightning storm, and so he was named _Buramos_ , for lightning. It was not uncommon for an Ishvalan's name to change as they took on different roles or became famous or infamous for something. In Old Ishval, only the clan or tribe name truly mattered and never changed. Thus, when Buramos received his scar from Kimblee and others began to call him by the name, he didn't fight it. To set the record straight, other Ishvalans were the first to name him _Uskir_ , meaning _Scar_. They demanded that he remember the physical and emotional scars left behind by Amestris on Ishval, and begged him to take vengeance for their sake. Made zealous by their desperation, Scar embraced his name and took to the streets of Central to avenge his people the only way he knew.

"Scar," he corrected her, turning his head so he could look at her. Her voice wasn't familiar.

"Scar…" she formed the word in her mouth, and it sounded jagged and uneasy. She wasn't used to speaking in the Amestrian tongue, then. Scar deduced she was from the Southern slums, which were said to be the most independent of Central control. "Scar… Uskir?" Slow and weary Amestrian rolled from her mouth, "do you remember me?"

She had striking features; high cheekbones, a defined nose, and sharply arched lips tinted with red ochre. She was not particularly young, but didn't move with the energy of an older woman either. He deduced that she must have been a great beauty in Old Ishval. But her face was not familiar.

"I'm sorry," he admitted, and the woman just nodded, her expression unreadable.

"Ahh," Old man Juriv recovered from the shock of the reunion, and nudged Scar to get his attention. "I always knew you would return." He drew his student into a deep embrace, and Scar was surprised that his master was still able to give out the bone crushing greeting of the Kanda people. When he pulled away, Scar turned his head again but the woman in black was gone.

A little confused but with no time to waste, Scar turned back to his master. "Master, who else has arrived of our former community?" A cursory glance around the tent yielded no other familiar faces, though some seemed to look at him with recognition in their eyes. Scar's face was famous- splashed across national television and glued to the walls. Every Ishvalan knew Scar the avenger, but very few knew the man he was before the war.

"It seems that those from the southern slums, like me, arrived first. I've been here a few days… some of us arrived even before the military started setting up tents!" The old man's voice dropped now to a low tone, "Scar, you must understand by now that very few people we knew survived. Kanda was a large province, and… the _state alchemist_ they assigned to our own district was… particularly thorough." Juriv spat the words out like they were poison. Scar realized his master was referring to Kimblee. He had heard rumors that Ishvalans in other districts, such as those assigned to the Strong Arm alchemist, the Flame alchemist, or the Freezing alchemist, were able to escape if they hid themselves well enough. Their community was extremely misfortunate to have been assigned to the Crimson Lotus alchemist, who personally ensured that every last Ishvalan in his given arcs of fire was dead. Those other Ishvalan survivors from Kanda would remember Scar as the man he once was, but very few would know him personally. Yet Scar wasn't about to complain. For the first time in his life since the war, he was with a familiar face.

By this point most of the conversation around the tent had stopped; a few dozen eyes fixed themselves on Scar. One of the men in the back, sitting on a cushion, spoke up. "You're the one who's working with that Lt. Colonel, aren't you? I suppose we have you to thank." With a grunt, he pulled himself up to his feet. Scar gasped- "I know you."

The brawny man was slowly making his way through the other seated Ishvalans towards Scar, and now he paused, tilting his head. "You do?"

"You're Aris," Scar grinned, excitement in his every line. "You're Aris, the baker. My mother used to buy your bread."

The other men who sat around began to laugh, slapping their knees. "You're a lucky man, Aris! Every man who's got a mouth knows you, and every woman who's got a husband loves you!"

Aris flushed with what could either be embarrassment or pride. Nonetheless, he shook Scar's hand warmly. "Navasta, avum-Ishvala."

Those words brought Scar back to himself, and he remembered his duty. With Juriv's nod of approval, Scar began to speak in a strong and steady tone, explaining the current state of operations. Women drew their children to their chests and hushed them, and men put down their pipes.

Since he could not be sure how much these Ishvalans knew, he fully explained the Amestrian state's role in the restoration, what their goals were, and who was in charge. "Lt. Colonel Miles is the Commanding Officer," he said, and when blank eyes stared back he elaborated somewhat reluctantly, "he's the Ishvalan in the uniform."

The words brought forth hisses and gasps, then a string of mutters. "He's not Ishvalan if he wears that uniform," one woman said, and murmurs of approval rang out.

An older man, who'd been listening quietly all this time, came to his feet. He was perhaps even older than Juriv, and his beard was a tangled mess of grey… but it was the look on his face that took Scar's breath away. He had the familiar eyes of a man forced to madness by grief, and his forehead was split with the deep crevices of misery. When he spoke, he gestured violently with a calloused hand, making the motions of cutting something down with a sabre or knife.

"I have watched my country fall to the wretchedness of those lawless shameless Amestrians, seen my children maimed from bombs and shells. I watched my tribe disintegrate in front of me, my family's history erased by fire." With his growing anger, his voice also grew in volume until the entire tent fell to silence and children began to cry, shaken from his emotion.

"Ishval was a land of beauty, a land that others sought to emulate. We had distinguished languages, a wealth of cultures, saints, prophets, medicines, heroes… the greatest Kings! Ishval was the spiritual motherland of the world! The religions of Xing and Drachma, the former religions of Amestris, the pagan religions of the wandering tribes- did they not all claim birth in Ishval? The great king Armuun the Conquerer, known for his infallible character and incredible conquests in the early era… was he not from the northern steppes of what we used to call Gunja?"

He motioned outside, the energy draining out of him by the second. A few Amestrian soldiers had gathered to watch the commotion. "Now Ishval is ruined! The history of my people… _gone_! Do you think that can be rebuilt? When you spill a pot of water onto the sand, can you collect back every drop?" He pointed straight at Scar, spittle flying from his mouth. "And now you tell me, _Uskir_ , that an _Ishvalan_ in an _Amestrian_ uniform is here to rebuild my country? What does he know about Ishval? What does he know of what we've endured? What kind of Ishvalan was he? Has he hiked the mountains of Gunja? Has he roamed the central highlands of Kanda? Has he farmed the endless green plains of Daliha? How is he going to remove the _scar_ that his people put on this land?"

Humbled by the genuine display of emotion, Scar couldn't help but sympathize. He understood that there was nothing dramatic or theatrical about this man's outburst. It was merely the reaction of a human being who'd lost everything. When he looked at the faces of the other Ishvalans, he saw the deep melancholy that the man's accusations dredged up. He himself had fought with the same feelings of crushing anger and deep regret, and it certainly wasn't easy to make peace with.

Juriv placed a reassuring hand on Scar's shoulder, and though his face was weighed with the same inevitable sadness as any man who'd been witness to war, there was something warm and compassionate there also.

Suddenly, it came to him that all eyes were on him.

It'd been a long time since he'd tried to speak in front of a crowd with intentions of calming them instead of intimidating them. "By the light of Ishvala, I feel your pain," he told the other man, bending his shoulders to show him the respect that an elderly Ishvalan deserved. "The war has been _tohum dhust,_ very difficult, on all of us. Let us not argue. After all, we were a country of mixed peoples and tribes to begin with, and we've come to accept each others not as Gunjans or Dalihans, but as Ishvalans. The matter at hand here is this land and our people, and what we can do to make it shine again. The damage has been done, and we are here to look forward towards a better future. We all know clearly that without the Amestrians' help, restoring Ishval from the state it's in now is… impossible." When he was met with defeated silence, Scar went on, now much more carefully.

To ensure there would be no misconceptions, he fully described his own role in acting as a liaison to the Amestrians, along with offering his spiritual services as the warrior monk he once was. And since they were all to find out eventually, he forced himself to fully explain the State Alchemist Reparation Clause. When he finished, he was actually surprised that the tent hadn't erupted into roars of outrage.

The elderly man who'd argued previously only looked exhausted now, sinking back into his cushions while an unsmiling eight-year-old boy quietly handed him a glass of tea.

"That's it," a woman said suddenly, breaking the silence. She had the high cheekbones of the mountainous people, and seemed to share their custom of relentless hospitality. "Let's have tea."

And, just like that, life returned to normal. The wound closed, and the laughter returned as a blackened kettle was passed around the tent. Glasses were filled with tea and the tent was soon filled with the animated chatter of reunited kinsmen. Scar realized that the Ishvalans, at least right now, didn't seem to care about the finer details. They only knew that they were free again, on their own land, in the company of their own people, and that was enough.

It was enough. He didn't even notice Aris' eyes on him, scrutinizing him, trying to remember… A black skirt fluttered on the edge of his vision.

Those things probably required his attention. But, for now, it was time for tea.

Scar's shoulders softened. His brow, pinched and creased with stress, started to relax. The old man glanced furtively between him and Juriv between sips of tea. "I was fought with the Gunjan resistance," he eventually murmured, "and I am called Black." He beckoned for the young boy to bring two glasses, and soon began to pour tea for Juriv and Scar. "I'm sorry for my anger," he said grudgingly, offering the tea to the priests. "I sometimes fail to remember that we all suffered… each in our own way."

"Yes," Scar agreed, sitting himself down beside Black and watching the people chat animatedly between themselves, sharing stories and old war tales. He liked watching people more than instructing them. "I lost my family, my home… my friends." The memory of it no longer stung, much to his surprise. Scar's hands were still shaking from the feeling of being back on Ishvalan land. He sipped the tea carefully, not even minding how watered down it tasted. "Everything Ishvala gives to us, He can take away."

Juriv nodded in agreement, reaching out to hold Black's hand in a show of support between two men who'd seen far too much. "I notice you don't join our morning prayers, Black. It may do you some good."

Black drew his hand back, looking a little embarrassed. "I no longer pray in words to Ishvala, _jai-avum_. For decades I feared Ishvala begrudged my voice and did not want to hear from me. I fear now that our Creator found my silence cowardly and has deemed me unworthy of His attention." His words were so laced with a mixture of shame and melancholy that Scar found it hard not to intervene. Though many would claim he had the features of a hard and brutish man, Scar could never stand to watch someone suffer.

"Words were Ishvala's first creation," he said softly, "but silence is the plasma of His creation, and in silence thoughts can be conveyed and received unlimited by the man-made barriers of language."

Black's thin lips spread into a small smile. He struggled for words to express his relief and gratitude, then settled on thanking Juriv instead. "You have taught this young man well. He will make a fine priest."

"As Ishvala wills," Juriv laughed, raising his glass to Black's. Scar, too, raised his glass. Ishvalans never used to have a tradition of toasting. Over the years of living in Amestrian slums, the Ishvalans had picked up certain customs from the Amestrians.

Before Scar drank, he tapped his glass gently on the ground. After some weeks of living with the Amestrian military, he'd picked up a habit too.

"What's the tap for?" Asked Black.

"The tap," Scar explained, in Miles' exact words, "is a toast to those who are no longer with us. In remembrance."

For his mother, father, and brother. For all that had fallen before. For every single victim of every single war. He sipped at his tea, lukewarm but undeniably a taste of home, and he smiled.

* * *

End Ch. 4

* * *

 _Notes:_

 _I struggled a little thinking about whether I should give this chapter a really uplifting, happy feel or make it bittersweet and melancholy. I remembered that these Ishvalans had seen war, lost loved ones, and perhaps even participated. Not one life was completely untouched by the war. It really wouldn't be easy for them to come back to this land that triggered such horrendous memories, especially when they could actually remember what it once was. I purposefully gave Scar almost no familiar faces on his return- this is so he can slowly forge new relationships._

 _I wanted to properly describe the destruction in Ishval. After all, Ishval saw years of civil war before the extermination occurred. These people weren't just coming back to homes that slightly needed repair. They were coming back to the equivalent of a post-apocalyptic wasteland._

 _Isle's storyline is meant to give a voice to the mystical Old Ishvalan way of life before they were forced to modernize rapidly to keep up with the civil war._


	5. Chapter 5

**Kimblee**

Once upon a time, Kimblee's father took him fishing. The day was hot and the fish weren't biting, and the man grew more agitated by the minute. At some point, they noticed an empty boat drifting their way. His father saw it too, but he didn't say anything, so Kimblee didn't move. The small unmanned vessel eventually collided gently with their fishing boat, nudging them just slightly off their chosen fishing spot before drifting away behind them. Kimblee had expected a violent outburst, raising his arms reflexively to defend himself- but his father hadn't responded. The man just shrugged his broad shoulders and muttered, calmly reaching for his oar to steer their fishing boat back onto its path.

Then, in the afternoon, they saw another small fishing boat coming their way. This boat had a man in it, but he was slouched over and fast asleep. Kimblee's father leapt up from his seat and unleashed a torrent of curses, shouting at the man to wake up and steer clear. After all, they had lines in the water and they couldn't be disturbed! When the man failed to wake, Kimblee's father shouted again, spittle flying from his mouth. The man didn't wake until his skid bumped against theirs. Then he jerked up and muttered a dazed apology. But it was too little, too late. By this point Kimblee's father had grown so furious that he leapt into the other man's boat and grabbed him screaming by the front of his shirt. With a mighty heave, he pulled the other man up and threw him into the lake.

Kimblee was thirteen years old, and as he watched the man struggle and drown, he pondered why his father wasn't angry earlier. What was different? All because someone was in the boat this time.

 _Stupid,_ he thought.

Now Kimblee was much older, but the memory came to mind when he arrived at the tent of Ishvalan survivors and felt their eyes on him.

"Navasti," he said casually to the Ishvalans, and some of them were even shocked into greeting him in return. Kimblee was keenly aware that he was the only state alchemist who'd participated in the original extermination to return to aid in the restoration. Everyone else was killed by Scar or occupied in Central. Sure, other state alchemists may be stationed here now, but they had never experienced the extermination. They would only know half the story. _What a shame._

He saw no point in making a bad impression to the returning Ishvalans. His duty was to fulfill his orders-to explode what needed to be torn down, to re-build what needed to be raised up. He had no intention of making his job more difficult than necessary by making the locals hate him.

"Dinner will be served in the mess tent in about an hour," he informed the Ishvalans in a matter-of-fact tone. In reality, he'd come under Miles' orders to ensure that Scar was all right and wasn't in need of anything. But since he attracted so much attention by coming into the tent, he thought he might as well inform everyone of dinner. While he didn't see the point of making himself hated, he wasn't really motivated to go out of his way to make himself liked either. Satisfied that everything was fine, he was about to duck under the flap again and go to the mess tent himself when a small girl's voice rang out, full of eager curiosity-

"Mister, are you Kimlee?"

"Yes," he answered, a little amused that Scar must have told them about him. The Ishvalans fell into a tense silence, and even Scar was staring holes into Kimblee's head, perhaps remembering that terrible day when it all began- when an "Amestrian soldier" shot and killed a little girl on the streets of Gunja. When Kimblee finally understood exactly what had happened, he only felt a strange sense of amazement that the calculated death of one human being could trigger so much destruction, hatred, and conflict. For that one girl, so many others died.

Kimblee was deployed with an artillery battery in Ishval for the two years of war leading up to the extermination. They fought the Gunjans, who offered the most resistance to Amestrian power. One of the Gunjan guerrillas' favorite tactics was to destroy the first and last vehicles or tanks of an Amestrian convoy, and then unload everything they had on the trapped vehicles before they were forced to retreat from powerful returning fire. The Amestrians always had the upper hand in terms of manpower and resources, but the organized military exhausted itself trying to keep up with fighting a scattered guerilla force. Like elusive beasts, the Gunjan guerillas slunk in and out of the villages that supported them, and the only answer the Amestrians had was to bomb the shit out of all of them. They scattered mountain ranges with countless mines, and Kimblee's men rained incendiary artillery and shells over civilian villages.

There was a time when he'd felt sympathy for the dead. By the time the extermination officially began, human life became as inconsequential as the clouds passing in the sky. Surprisingly, Kimblee found it _liberating_. He'd unshanked the horse and let it gallop free, fire in its mane. The sound of guttering machine guns became the calls of countless tiny birds.

War became his drug.

Being always an instant away from unexpected death gave the present moment a sort of crystalline urgency. In the space between a shell striking near him and realizing he was still alive, time stretched into something of extravagant beauty: an endless spring that Kimblee drank from the cups of his murderous hands.

When Mustang, Hughes, and Armstrong arrived on the field, they were like babies being forced to run before they could crawl. They had not deployed to Ishval prior, had not seen how things were like on the ground. Kimblee watched the war destroy them, and wondered when he himself had been destroyed.

While they spent their nights contemplating over the _morality_ and _ethics_ of the war, Kimblee embraced the present because he knew that if he didn't, he would die. They were trying to discover the truth, but they didn't understand that there was no lasting truth to be found in the chaos of war. The truth could only be understood in the now, in that moment of grandeur, that moment of vibrancy when the space between life and death melted into one another. And when that moment passed, the truth would go with it. What was the truth? The only answer was: it is not.

Like most young children were in the most inopportune of times, the little girl was fearless. "You're the… alchemiss?" She pronounced the foreign word awkwardly.

"Yes," he said again, not really caring to explain more than he had to. Flipping through his mental catalogue of people he'd killed, Kimblee didn't recognize her features at all. She almost didn't look Ishvalan- maybe she was a mixed child. Her hair seemed a tad yellow. Maybe she was a war-child, Kimblee mused, born from a tryst of passion between an Amestrian soldier and an Ishvalan, or… _some other sort of encounter_.

"Ok," she just said, then patted her skirt to shake the dirt off. And the conversation just ended like that- as if it'd never started at all. Kimblee was left in equal parts confused, amused, and annoyed. He gave one last look at Scar and wondered at the torn expression on his face. But Kimblee had neither the time nor the desire to ponder other people's thoughts. He let the tent flap fall and headed towards the mess tent.

Juniper the head cook had taken over operations in the mess kitchen, and from what Kimblee had overheard from those soldiers who'd arrived as part of the advance party, her food was worth suffering through two weeks of hard rations. Already the mouthwatering aroma of stewing meat and roasted vegetables was wafting through the air. The Crimson alchemist entered the mess tent and wandered down the aisle between the rows and rows of wooden tables. Noticing that several soldiers sat on the left side of the tent chatting to themselves and the right side was completely empty, he chose a seat on the right side of the tent. The chatter stopped on the other side. A young soldier promptly came up to Kimblee, stood there shaking in his boots for a few moments, and eventually worked up the courage to inform him that this side of the tent belonged to the Ishvalans.

"That's silly," he shot back, "I'll sit wherever I want."

"No you won't," a familiar voice boomed from over his shoulder. "Move, Kimblee, or I will move you."

The Crimson Alchemist simply yawned, lazily swinging his legs back over the edge of his seat and standing. Without a single word of response or even a look, Kimblee moved to the other side like it was his idea all along and he never heard Scar's threat. The Ishvalan man was growling deep in his throat again, the fire of his irritation probably helping to roast the vegetables. Kimblee would never stop wondering at how some peoples' egos seemed to dwarf their brains. The soldiers were whispering amongst themselves, no doubt now having noticed that Kimblee's uniform, despite being in the design of an officer's, had no rank sewn on. Kimblee himself wasn't concerned with such petty things like losing face or being embarrassed. He honestly didn't care what others thought of him.

He just sat there, rejoicing in his alone-ness like he normally did regardless of where he was, when Scar sat down across from him.

Kimblee tilted his head and said, "I thought this side was for the Amestrians, avum-Ishvala. Please go back to your side."

Scar was red all the way to the roots of his hair, embarrassment replacing his anger. "I- look, Kimblee, we'd planned to let people freely sit wherever they want, Amestrians and Ishvalans alike. But that didn't happen two weeks ago and it won't happen now, I promise you."

Genuinely caught off guard by the fact that Scar was actually speaking to him in a non-threatening manner, Kimblee fought to find his tongue again. "I'm not _upset_ , Scar."

The other man furrowed his brows. "This isn't about you, Kimblee."

"Mm." He noticed that Scar looked like he still had things to say, but wasn't sure if Kimblee cared to listen. The Crimson Lotus thought it was all rather unnecessary, and quickly grew impatient. "Speak if you have more to say, don't waste my time."

* * *

 **Scar**

From the point of view of an outsider, Ishvalans were all lumped together into one generic culture. But this was not true.

When the civil war broke out, the Ishvalans couldn't come together as a body on how to respond. The Kandans argued for diplomacy. The Gunjans rallied for war. The Dalihans surrendered. The Gunjans despised the Dalihans for not fighting back, hated their religious extremism that forced them to martyr themselves. The Dalihans, similarly, resented the Gunjans for resisting and raising the ire of their aggressors. If it weren't for the Gunjan resistance, they argued, the extermination would never have happened. The Kandans, caught in the middle, struggled to contain the civil conflict in their province. Some Kandans believed that the Gunjans were overstepping their bounds, that Ishvala would not have approved of their violence. Others believed that the Amestrians were Ishvala's test, and that they would prove themselves by fighting back.

In the end, Ishval lost. Almost all the Dalihans were slaughtered during the extermination, despite their willingness to cooperate. The Gunjans, too, were exterminated with the most ruthless hand. The Kandans, having failed at ever diplomatic plead they could offer, were squashed like bugs. In the trail of the destruction, Scar's people separated. The thought of leading these returning Ishvalans was more than daunting.

"In the days to come, more Ishvalans will arrive. How am I supposed to rally their loyalties?" The more he spoke, the more haggard he looked. "And who's to say they'll all listen to _me?_ " The truth was, Scar had never been very good at leading people. He did not have his brother's intellect and charisma.

In fact, it was taking all of his willpower to not cling to Juriv as the only familiar face of his past. It was his duty now to become a pillar for New Ishval, and he couldn't just hide behind his studies. The path of the priest was once perfect for him. But now, whether he liked it or not, he was forced to become more. At least when he was branded as a criminal in Amestris, it was he who shaped who he was. But now, in Ishval, he felt the pressure on him to conform to this unfamiliar role. And that thought was terrifying.

There was a reason he was confiding in Kimblee, of all people. The truth was, Kimblee reminded Scar a little of his brother Evram. Ruthlessly driven and perceptive, both men were able to tear others apart with only a few sharp, carefully chosen words.

His brother used to set him straight all the time when Scar tried to reach too far. And whenever he'd tried to run from his responsibilities, it was Evram who pulled him back.

When he was just a boy on the cusp of manhood, he used to spend time with misfits and those who were down and out. Scar came very close to becoming a delinquent or swept up by Anti-Amestrian groups seeking hands to hold their weapons.

There was a young girl in particular that Scar, who was named Buramos then, took a liking to. She was nothing more than a street urchin, with no house name to protect her. Somehow, she and Scar became friends. They'd climb to the roofs of mud brick buildings lining the side streets, hiding behind lines of hanging laundry and picking at stolen pomegranates. Scar was son to a family whose high expectations crushed him, and he found relief in the carefree time he spent with his lowborn friends.

They were still children then, not yet aware of how time devoured all things good.

One day, she became a woman. He remembered how scared she looked when she rose from her seat on the ground and saw it tinged with red. He wished he knew what that meant. He didn't understand how a little bit of blood, once a month, could ruin everything. Suddenly they couldn't meet anymore. Dalihan women were known to shroud their heads in a show of modesty, and the practice was slowly spilling into Kanda.

Scar never saw her again. He'd wait underneath the poplar tree that stood on the outskirts of their district, but she'd never come. He didn't know where she lived, and he was so distraught that he didn't eat for a few days.

Day after day his father nudged him to attend Kanda's prestigious law school. Scar's father, Elias, was one of the Chieftan's advisors, and he desperately wanted his sons to follow his path. Evram had already disappointed him, and he was desperate for his second son to come to his senses.

But Scar had no interest in law. He liked listening to stories and using his fists. He'd get in trouble often, and he got increasingly upset at his father. How was he supposed to solve other people's problems when he couldn't even solve his own? Scar found himself angry all the time and unable to balance his own emotions.

On one particularly hot night, after a heated argument where his father stormed out of their house and his mother retreated to the gardens, crying, Evram came and sat beside Scar. The cushions were strewn all about their sitting room from being thrown.

"What's up with you, kid?"

"I don't want to be a judge," Scar mumbled, squeezing himself in and rocking on the floor. "I don't want to be anything."

"That's dumb," Evram advised calmly, "and you know it. You're capable of so many things, Buramos." He started to stroke Scar's back, rubbing calming circles at the base of his neck. Scar felt tears stinging at his eyes. Evram used to comfort him, just like this, years ago when he was afraid of thunder. How silly- to be afraid of the very thing he was named after.

"I miss my friend," Scar said, his voice wavering.

"Which?"

He told Evram of the missing girl, convinced that she'd been hurt or kidnapped or sold into slavery. He knew that she often spoke about the Gunjan guerillas, and they both liked to debate how they thought the war would progress. He was convinced she'd joined the Gunjans.

"That's impossible," said Evram, who was seventeen and boasted wisdom far beyond his years. "She's a girl. Her family's probably married her off."

Scar scowled. "She never wanted to marry. She told me." He sat up, shaking the stiffness from his joints. He knew his father would be back soon. He didn't want to be seen curled up like a miserable thing on the floor.

Evram sighed, patting the crown of Scar's head. Scar was almost his height now, and growing fast. "Brother, you forget that no one can run from what is written. Just like one day father will arrange my marriage, as Ishvala wills, and in time you will also be married."

"But…" The young man was slowly realizing the implications of what this meant. To Scar, this was a new dilemma that he'd never thought about. "But I don't want to marry a girl that doesn't want to be married."

"That's a noble thought, Buramos. But unrealistic."

"Why would a priest allow an unwilling woman to marry? Does the Ishvaram not protect them against this?" The Ishvaram was a collection of revelations from the prophets Hakum, Irikesh, the female prophet Jarizia, and the man called Logue Lowe. Every Ishvalan studied the Ishvaram and worshipped their Creator in the manner in which it dictated. According to Irikesh's revelation, the priests of Ishvala were to ask both the bride and groom three times in private if they wished to marry. If at any point either party refused, the priest was to call off the wedding and give them the option to annul the betrothal. "That's what father said."

"The world is not so kind, brother, and not all priests abide by the rules Ishvala set." He pushed up his glasses and wiped the sweat under his eyes. To Scar, it looked like his brother was crying. "Yes, that is what they are supposed to do. But priests are paid to officiate over weddings. Some priests don't… go through the full process of asking. According to Irikesh, the responsibility of sheltering the bride, if her family disowned her, fell on the priest's monastery."

"But that's terrible! Priests are supposed to be trustworthy, honest people!"

Evram shook his head. "I'm sorry, Buramos. You probably won't see her again."

Again, shock. "Why?"

"Well, it'd be considered unseemly for a married woman to meet with another man."

This, Scar did understand. Yet for such a long time he'd always applied it to the society at large and excluded himself and his friends from being a part of this rule. To find himself mortal and his friends vulnerable was a wake up call. "I wouldn't do that to my wife. If she wanted to meet with her friends then I'd let her go."

Evram laughed.

"Why are you laughing?" Scar pushed away his brother's hand that reached out to tousle his hair.

"You're just a boy! When you're married, you will understand."

"No, I won't."

"You will."

In his mind, Scar made his decision. "That's it!"

"…what? What's it?"

"I'll become a priest!" He jumped up and down, pumped by adrenaline. It was perfect. He was interested in spiritual studies, so to become a priest would free him of both his father's pressures and his duties to marriage.

Obviously, Evram was not impressed with his impulsive decision. "Being a priest isn't easy, Buramos. They can't eat meat on the seventh day of the week. They can only wear robes, shamla, and sandals. They… they have to shave, do lots of reading… and no girls! Think about that, Buramos."

Scar, at fourteen years old, had no real interest in girls. He had the same urges as every other boy his age, but women and girls didn't fascinate him any more than anything else. Like his brother, the Ishvaram and its teachings enraptured him. Ishvala's priests were meant to be protectors of His realm, and hence were trained both spiritually and physically to defend their homes as warrior-monks. Evram came close to priesthood, but his unwillingness to commit himself to physical training excused him to a life of scholarship. As the more athletic of the two brothers, Scar felt that he had nothing to hold him back. In addition, becoming a priest would brand him a community servant, and he'd be able to see his lowborn friends on a regular basis without having to hide in the sidestreets. He'd actually be able to improve their lives.

He'd miss stealing pomegranates, but that was a very small tradeoff.

"I want to do it." He'd never been more sure of anything his whole life. "I want to be a priest. I don't care about the chieftan's laws. I want to learn Ishvala's, and I want to live honestly and give to the poor. Most of all, I want to make sure that girls don't get forced into marrying."

His brother drew back, surprised. A proud smile slowly split over his face. "Listen, Buramos. Think about it for one more week. Don't do anything stupid. If after one week you still want to do this, then I'll do everything I can to support you. But don't tell father."

"I won't." The two brothers shared a sheepish look, and Evram smiled.

"No more stealing, no more fistfights, ok?"

Scar slouched, embarrassed. "Ok."

True to his word, a week later he came to Evram's study, resolute in his decision. Evram introduced him to a prominent Kandan priest by the name of Juriv. As a scholar, Evram often had to refer to Juriv's extensive library of precious texts. "Old man Juriv always wanted me to be a priest, but I haven't got the guts for it," Evram told Scar, adding a bit of water and honey to his inkpot. "Maybe you'll make him proud instead. I hope you don't regret this, brother."

Elias wasn't happy at first, but Evram stood by his brother through the whole ordeal. Eventually, his mother sorted him out like she normally did. Most Kandan households were run with men at the pedals but women at the driver's wheel, which was why Scar found Mustang and Hawkeye's relationship particularly endearing.

His brother had been his rock, one of his best friends and his closest confidant.

So when Evram died, he couldn't hold back his rage.

Scar wasn't sure if he regretted doing what he did, killing those state alchemists. He still believed, wholeheartedly, that he was bringing justice to those that sorely deserved it. Nina was perhaps the only innocent Scar killed, and it was still out of mercy.

He blinked. He'd rather not think about whether he regretted the past or not. He could do so much in the time it took to think about that.

"Have you brought your concerns to the Lt. Colonel?"

Scar turned his face away, not wanting Kimblee to see the striken expression on his face. "You know more about Old Ishval than Miles does." Scar knew a struggling man when he saw one, and knew that Miles needed some time to figure out where exactly he stood in this project. Speaking to Miles was frustrating. The man's knowledge of Old Ishval was little more than basic, and it was difficult to set him straight without somehow offending him. In addition, Miles sometimes got impatient with Scar for not understanding the Amestrian point of view, for forgetting that they couldn't just magically make materials and buildings appear from thin air. Worst of all, Miles _assumed_ that Scar had everything under control, like he'd fit right in again like a fish jumping back into a stream.

"Miles thinks it's so easy- he thinks that people will defer to me just because I work with the Amestrians." Scar slumped, what confidence he had waning. "My position is precarious; I'm just a priest, Kimblee." His father was named arbiter of the community, but Scar couldn't live up to that. He lamented, "I was nothing before the war, and I am still nothing now."

Just like Evram, Kimblee chose words that branded the listener. "If your people are smart, they'll see that you are the best and _only person_ capable of leading the restoration. What if someone was a Chieftan, a High Priest, a King? If your people are smart, they'll see people for what they truly are and not what they say they are."

The Ishvalan pondered this, eyes tracing the tattoos on his forearms. They were searing his skin like liquid fire, and Scar tried to rub at them. Was it because of the heat?

"What's wrong with your arms?"

"Nothing," Scar grunted, a little perplexed but not wanting to draw any additional attention to his tattoos. Luckily, Kimblee was unable to comment further. Generally, most soldiers avoided waiting around in the mess tent right before meals for fear they'd get whisked away to help serve the food. Those who had to serve food were the last to eat, after all. Most tended to hang around outside smoking their cigarettes and waiting.

Juniper hopped into the tent from the flap on the other side that connected the tent to the kitchens."Who likes ice cream?!" She shouted, and instantly four hands from the table behind them flew up. "Who likes candy?!" She shouted now, and Kimblee started to chuckle softly.

"The oldest trick in the book," he smirked at Scar, who was slow to catch on but smiled when he did.

"Good!" Juniper said, waving the soldiers towards her. "Congratulations, you've just volunteered yourself to serve tonight's dinner!" The men, realizing they'd been duped, groaned but had no choice but to comply. Then, almost as an afterthought, she beckoned Kimblee over as well. "We need an officer to make it fair!"

The look on the Crimson Lotus' face was priceless.

* * *

 **Dr. Marcoh**

He was resting on the slope of the dry ravine that separated their lively camp from the destruction that surrounded them. Once the Doctor arrived at his field hospital and approved of its state of affairs, Marcoh decided to take a walk. And so, here he was. The sun was setting, lighting the decimated buildings afire once more as far as the eye could see.

A woman in a long black dress approached him. He saw her shadow coming first- a long limbed thing, like a spider.

"Navasta," he said to her, shuffling to the side so she could choose to sit down if she wanted to. From what Marcoh knew of Ishvalan women, most found it uncomely to be alone with a male stranger. But when Marcoh looked at her, he saw that she was not a young lady as he'd once thought. She was perhaps forty or fifty years old, though she held herself like a woman half her age.

She looked at him, appraised him. Most women shied from the sight of Marcoh's face, now deformed beyond recognition. But this spider-limbed woman faced him fully, her gaze unwavering. Her eyes were a bright brown in this light, lined with blue charcoal. She said something in Ishvalan, and Marcoh felt his face grow hot.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "I don't know much Ishvalan."

"You're a doctor," she said now in Amestrian, the words forming harshly on her tongue. "I can feel it on you."

During Marcoh's last deployments, he found himself sequestered away in clinics and some field hospitals, though he never had the opportunity to speak with Ishvalans. And when he did, it was in a last ditch attempt to calm them before tying them up and throwing them onto the transmutation circle in laboratory five. He swallowed thickly, suddenly terrified that this woman could see through him and understand what he had done. "…You can?"

She loomed over him now, the corners of her lips drawn down. "I can feel the spirits around you. They are howling."

Marcoh wasn't one to believe in ghosts, but for some reason he believed her words. A terrible feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. So he was haunted, then, by the Ishvalans whose lives he took for those wretched experiments. "I- who are you?"

"They call me the Witch of Dasht." She reached a pale hand towards him and touched him unexpectedly on his face, making Marcoh draw back out of the suddenness of it. "My people touch each other on the face when they meet," the Witch explained, "I hear your people touch their hands together."

"How did you know my name?"

"The spirits told me." She picked up the sides of her long skirt and sat down next to him, the smell of some smoky scent drifting from her long silver hair. "I was a doctor too, Marcoh. Our souls know each other."

"You were a healer?" From his research, Marcoh knew that this was dangerous territory. Ishvalan medicine differed significantly from province to province. Most Ishvalans trusted household remedies, bought protective amulets, or sought spiritual healing by visiting priests or holy places. Being a healer in Old Ishval was walking a thin line between being loved and being hated, and Marcoh could understand why this woman claimed she was called _witch_.

"Hmmm. You could say that. Before the war, I was what they called a sorceress. Women came to me with their troubles. I delivered their children. Men came to me with their desires and ailments." She told Marcoh of some of the things she'd done, and the Amestrian doctor was amazed at the wild diversity of what Ishvalans considered healing arts. "There is a weed that grows under the waadi here, look." She pointed to a cluster of thick and tough looking plants with jagged leaves jutting from a crack in the ground. "That is what we call Devil's Bit, and its pulp smells like honey but tastes very bitter. Make a tea out of it and a woman won't need to worry herself over an unwanted pregnancy. But brew it too strong and she'll die."

"Incredible," the doctor murmured, studying the innocuous looking weed that he couldn't even tell apart from the myriad of other plants in the area. He realized that it would be a good idea to carry around a sketchbook and start compiling notes of the local medicinal flora. Marcoh was just thinking about if it would be appropriate to ask for his new acquaintance's help when she let out with something startling:

"Doctor, you've killed a lot of my people."

"Ah," Marcoh stammered-what was he supposed to say to that? How did she know? There was no appropriate way to respond except with the truth. "Yes." Marcoh cast his gaze down and looked away out of his shame. "It… it was a terrible mistake. I lived in guilt for many years, and still do now."

She seemed to be pondering his answer. "Do you remember ever seeing a young Ishvalan girl with the Gunjan resistance, with hair that's silver-brown?"

Ah, so she was trying to find a loved one. Marcoh felt a deep surge of pity for her. "I'm sorry, I don't recall."

"You think she's dead,"the witch hissed, turning a pair of feral red eyes to him. "She's not. One day she'll come here, she'll find me. She promised."

"I'm sorry," Marcoh just said, and he didn't even know what he was apologizing for. Most Gunjan resistance fighters were killed by the State during the first phase of the extermination several years ago, and there were very few young women who chose to fight. Even if she survived the extermination, Marcoh knew that her chances of making it to a slum or other Ishvalan survivor community were next to none."Do you have another name? Besides what you say they call you?"

She hesitated, her tongue working in her mouth. "Isle," she said at last, "Isle of Dasht."

"It's good to meet you, Isle…" Marcoh gave her a warm smile, delighting in how she smiled back just a little. "Isle, I would be honored if you would work alongside me in my field clinic. I'm sure the women here would appreciate a healer with your particular skills."

"A sorceress," Isle corrected, a sly look forming on her face. "We shall see, Doctor Marcoh. But first, come to meal with me."

So together they walked the pebbled path towards the mess tent, where two lines had formed. One line was of Amestrian soldiers, some with tunics on but most in their white undershirts. The mix of hair colors and skin tones contrasted the standardization in their clothing; some had black hair and pale skin, some had yellow hair but dark skin… Marcoh could even make out one redhead. The other line was filled with Ishvalans, with their patched clothing in a wide array of colors. Yet, man and woman and child alike sported the same silver blonde hair, dark skin, and red eyes.

The segregation was ridiculous to see.

Marcoh now became hyperaware that he was standing here between the two lines with Isle at his side.

"Which line should we take, Doctor?" she asked him.

In a moment of impulse, Marcoh moved into the Ishvalan line, anxiously muttering _navasti_ s to those who turned to look at him. But most didn't react. Marcoh wasn't sure if it was because they trusted him, or if it was because he was with Isle. Or maybe they were too disgusted by the sight of his face to say anything.

A lone soldier drew the tent's opening back and tied their ropes up to the posts.

The two lines of hungry people filed in and towards the huge long table set up at the very back where cooks were hurrying in and out carrying baskets of cutlery and pans of food. Marcoh recognized four soldiers standing at the other side of the table, serving ladles and spoons in their hands. The Crimson Alchemist was standing by a giant pot of what Marcoh presumed to be soup, holding a soup ladle with an immensely displeased expression on his face. Scar stood beside him with a wide spoon for scooping rice. At the side of the table where all would first pass by, an old Ishvalan man stood at the ready, armed with tall towers of paper plates. As the two lines of Amestrians and Ishvalans approached him, the old man passed stacks of paper plates to each line so they could pass it down. But when it came to the food, it became unwieldy to serve two lines of people at once.

The Amestrians and Ishvalans at the front of the lines regarded each other cautiously. In a moment, a silent decision seemed to be made. The two lines began alternating, one Ishvalan after one Amestrian and so on, forming an entirely new line to receive food.

Isle breathed out. "It wasn't like this before. They fed us Amestrian rations, and people could come and go as they pleased to pick them up. Ishvalans would never form a line with Amestrians, and they would never eat with them."

"I see," Marcoh nodded. "A huge number of soldiers arrived today, and many refugees also." This was the first fresh meal on the camp so far.

The witch eyed him. " _Refugees,_ doctor? Refugees on our own land?"

Marcoh mentally kicked himself over his terrible choice of words. "I apologize, my lady." To his surprise, Isle gave a little laugh. The paper plates came to her and she passed the rest to Marcoh. The doctor took one and passed it on. The Ishvalan behind him murmured something that sounded like a _thank you_.

Isle moved up into the food line, and immediately a sweaty looking Amestrian came between them. Marcoh followed, aware that he was in his uniform still. Kimblee saw him and nodded in a greeting. The two strands of his dark hair that he usually kept free in front of his face were now pushed to the side, plastered to the rest of his hair with sweat and the heat of the soup. "I fucking _hate_ ice cream and candy," Marcoh could swear the state alchemist was muttering under his breath. "Soup, doctor?"

Marcoh grinned, knowing exactly how Kimblee got roped into this predicament.

It was common practice to have officers serve food to their soldiers. After all, in the military higher ranked members and officers were supposed to eat last, after their subordinates. But Marcoh didn't think he'd ever seen the Crimson Lotus alchemist serve soup, and the absurd image brought a smile to his face. Kimblee passed him a paper bowl of what appeared to be a vegetable soup. He moved down the line, and next Scar loaded his plate with a heaping scoop of wild rice. The young Amestrian soldiers served him a portion of roasted vegetables and a ladle of stewed beef. One man had to keep running back and forth from the kitchen to replenish what was running out. It all smelled mouthwatering. At the very end of the table were several jugs of tea, juice, water, and baskets of fruit.

Marcoh noticed that after they'd received food, the Amestrians and Ishvalans again separated into their own groups. The soldiers took one side, while the Ishvalans took the other.

"Come sit with me, doctor," Isle was saying, and Marcoh couldn't say no. He could see some of the young doctors of his field hospital now, staring at him from their seats on the Amestrian side. Surely they had things to say to him, points to pass on, cases to inquire about… but Marcoh found himself following the witch of Dasht to sit at a table of rowdy Ishvalans.

While Marcoh and other Amestrians took a set of plastic cutlery, most Ishvalans only took napkins, scooping up rice using their fingers and eating with their hands. Marcoh watched them nimbly transfer rice into their mouths with the push of a thumb, and from the sounds they were making they seemed pleased.

"God bless the supply line," Marcoh joked, and it seemed he was overheard since a collective cheer went up on the Amestrian side. "Bless the supply trucks!" They hollered, raising their paper cups of water and juice. Some banged the tables with their fists. "Bless the cooks! Hoo-ah!"

The Ishvalans looked on with astonishment, a few openly laughing and clapping at the display. Despite their cultural differences and language barriers, both Amestrians and Ishvalans knew how to celebrate good food. It was strange, because Marcoh was not used to watching Ishvalans smile and listening to them laugh. It was a jarring difference from the cries of pain and terror he heard so often in his former lab. He only prayed that these Ishvalans wouldn't come to know who he was, and then suddenly a furtive voice at the back of his mind whispered:

 _they don't need to know._

What's past was past, and for the first time since he'd arrived, Marcoh tasted the possibility of that new promised day. Absently, he wondered where Lt. Colonel Miles was. He wished Miles could see how these Ishvalans were now passing him extra food from their plates, treating him like an honored guest, teaching him how to eat with his fingers.

* * *

 **Miles**

The moment he saw the two lines taking form in front of the tent, Lt. Colonel Miles turned tail and headed back into the command post.

He couldn't bring himself to choose.

He felt it would be wrong to stand with the Ishvalans in his uniform. They would reject him. Yet it would also be wrong to stand with the Amestrians looking as he did; the Ishvalans would never forgive him.

Anything he did, it would have been wrong.

His stomach growled, but he forced himself to concentrate. He told himself that food would come later. With Ross gone to dinner, the telephone beckoned.

It'd been so long…

Miles picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart.

Static.

 _Ring._

 _Ring._

 _Ri-_

"-this better be good, calling me at this hour!"

The familiar voice, annoyed and severe as always, warmed Miles' heart like no other could. "Major-General."

The recognition came slow. "…Miles?"

"Mira." He didn't even know what he was saying. He hadn't planned this through. Miles choked, overcome with homesickness. He was once so excited to come here, to do what he believed was his duty. Now he was all alone, a bastard of an Ishvalan, an outcast of an Amestrian. All he wanted was to be back in Briggs with his Queen.

As if having understood, Olivier's tone grew soft like it usually did when they were alone. "How's Ishval, Connor?"

"Hot, Mira," Miles replied, and closed his eyes at the low chuckle that made its way through the line. "I'm homesick already."

"Amestris is your home after all, hm?"

The Lt. Colonel thought about it. The answer was so obvious. Before Miles hadn't been sure, but now he was. "You are my home, Mira."

Olivier was never one to reciprocate cheesy lines, no matter how heartfelt. After a brief silence in which Miles simply listened to her breathe, she spoke again. "Come back and visit when you can," the Armstrong heir commanded, "I miss having you around."

"I will as soon as things are off the ground and stabilized here," Miles promised. Then the daring side of him blurted, "wait for me, Mira."

Before he had time to regret his words, Olivier chastised him, "last time I checked, things don't change very fast in Briggs, Connor. Come home soon."

"Yes. I will."

"Stay strong."

"Always."

"Good night, Connor."

"Good night, Mira."

Hesitation.

She hung up first, just like how it always was.

Miles slowly put down the phone back into its receiver, releasing a deep breath. He couldn't tell if he was relieved or terrified. He was still staring at the phone when Lt. Havoc arrived carrying two plates of dinner, complaining about how it was too hot in that tent and there were too many people and they were too loud-

"Eh?" He noticed Miles' forlorn expression. A slow smile snaked its way onto his face. "Been talking to a girl, huh? Never woulda pinned you for that kind of man, Sir."

"Well, I'm human like the rest of us," Miles joked back, and then the two men fell into an uneasy silence as they recalled the flip side of that equation. How close they'd all been to being played like fools, squashed under the feet of inhuman creatures?

"I'll get us some soup." Havoc disappeared towards the mess tent, blissfully unaware of how lucky he was to _understand what he was_. Only a minute or so later, Havoc reappeared with two plates of food with a visitor trailing him, carrying a paper cup of soup in each hand. The logistics officer shrugged, setting down both plates. "Was too cumbersome to carry a plate and two cups of soup," he explained briefly before grabbing Ross' chair and adding it to the table.

"Bastard was spilling like an idiot the whole way out," Kimblee added, setting down one of the soups in front of Miles. "Enjoy the damn thing, I don't want to see soup again for the rest of my life."

"My God," Miles breathed, noticing how Kimblee was positively _shining_ with sweat, "what the fuck happened to you? Did they try to steam you alive?" The Crimson Lotus sat down in one of the chairs at the table and rolled his neck around, grimacing.

"Now I remember why it was so good to be an officer. I'm not made for this kind of stuff, I tell you."

Havoc snickered, taking out a box of cigarettes and setting it on the table. "Can't stand the noise in there either, huh?"

"I like to eat my meals in peace," Kimblee replied, examining the plastic knives and forks. "You think we'll get issued a set of KFS?" KFS, military acronym for a metal meal set consisting of a knife, fork, and spoon.

"Probably." Havoc nodded, speaking between mouthfuls of rice. "The requisitions are with Central now, but they're pretty swamped with their own problems. We should have a permanent mess hall, if you ask me, with actual cutlery."

Miles let Kimblee and Havoc have their go at bashing Central's administrative backlogs and inadequately trained personnel. He was simply too glad now to be having food, and couldn't focus on much else. Occasionally he thought of Olivier, and wondered what she was doing.

"Where's Scar?" he inquired once he could think straight again. He moved some of the roasted peppers around on his plate.

"He's with his people," Havoc said, now eyeing the packet of cigarettes on the table.

"Ah." _His people_. Miles hoped he was doing well. He hadn't seen Scar since they arrived here, what with Miles being too busy handling administration and planning in the CP.

Havoc tapped his fingers on the table, looking anxiously at him.

"What is it?" Miles asked.

"I've been thinking… we're having a hard time acquiring supplies… mostly because it'd take a huge number of independent contractors to satisfy our requests for all these items."

"Go on."

"My family runs a trading and supply company. My company can find or manufacture the different items we need, and combine them into contracts under one vendor. Havoc Industries."

Kimblee whistled under his breath. Miles knew what he was thinking. It wasn't like Miles himself hadn't thought of it. The only problem was… "That's a pretty big conflict of interest there, Lieutenant."

Havoc clicked his tongue and scoffed, scratching the back of his head. "It wouldn't be a conflict of interest if my duties weren't affected! This will save us time in the long run, actually."

Miles took a moment to mull it over. "That is true, but there is a process to all this. You can't just ask and be granted permission to bring in your own services and goods."

"But-" He could see Havoc's face falling, the hope draining out of him.

"We are still soldiers of the Amestrian military, and we must adhere to our standards and regulations. Even if we're in Ishval right now, the rules don't simply vanish. We are still subject to Amestrian military regulations." Of course, it would be _so much easier_ if Havoc's company could offer a linear and customized contract to cover the myriad of items they needed to requisition: wood, metals, bolts, lubricants, pipage, textiles, furnishings, services… But they couldn't simply _do as they liked_. Miles saw the disappointment in his Lieutenant's face, and matched it with a frown of his own.

Logistically, this project was much harder than most people could imagine. Scar had grand plans before, wanting to _fix this_ and _do that_ , but Miles always had to draw back the man's errant dreams and remind him that, as a military force, their options were limited to what their regulations allowed. For example, Miles could only write off a certain sum of money for requisitions before he'd have to appeal to higher authority. The last thing he wanted to do was to overstep his boundaries and lose accountability of the public funds that were the lifeblood of this mission.

He felt like he was being asked to play God. How was he to play at God in this land that God Himself abandoned?

Havoc, it seemed, wasn't ready to give up. "Well… what would I have to do?"

Miles scrounged his mind for the regulation. Working under Major General Armstrong as her adjutant, he'd become quite intimate with military publications. "You'd need authorization from your Commanding Officer, and would need to submit a report to Amestris Public Works and Services allowing them to investigate your business to determine if it is ethically and economically viable."

He could almost hear the gears working in the other man's head. Kimblee watched them coolly, one dark eyebrow raised.

"But... wait, _you're_ my Commanding Officer."

The Ishvalan cringed. "Yes, but I'm not going to authorize your request."

"But- but why?"

Kimblee had had enough. "You honestly think that contracting your business to the project wouldn't take up your time in any way?"

"I can manage it," Havoc maintained, though he was looking less sure by the second.

Miles leaned forward, and Ross' wooden table creaked under his weight. "Lt. Havoc. You are my designated Supply Officer. Your duty extends beyond requisitions, only you don't know it yet because we've just got here. In the following months, more soldiers are coming to bolster you, because _you'll need it_. You're going to be one busy man, Havoc."

"He's right," Kimblee said, "how are you going to manage your own contracts when you have to oversee stocktaking, training, and auditing? Don't bite off more than you can chew, Havoc."

Miles furrowed his brows and tilted his head, impressed that Kimblee actually knew the basics of Havoc's job. He constantly had to remind himself that State Alchemists weren't just officers for show. They were officers because they were trained to the qualifications. Like Havoc and Miles, Mustang started as a logistics officer. Armstrong started as an infantry officer. From what Miles understood, Kimblee started in logistics, but later switched into artillery when he discovered how much he missed the sound of automatic gunfire and rocket propelled grenades.

"But…" It was clear that Havoc had dreamed of being able to bring his company in on the restoration, and Miles had no doubt whatsoever that his intentions weren't for profit. It would be almost idyllic, Havoc's company delivering them everything they wanted, cutting out the need to enter into various contracts at once… Yet, he just couldn't approve of it. The public would never approve of it. If Havoc brought his personal company into this, the risk of conflict of interest and ethical concern would skyrocket. Plus, they'd be putting all their eggs in one basket. One wrong step and the project would fall. It was much safer to have multiple suppliers than to rely on one, even if the process was much longer and more arduous.

"I'm sorry. I know it was your dream." It had once been his dream too to come here. Now Miles wasn't sure if he was slowly entering into a nightmare.

"I don't know," Havoc sighed, "I guess some dreams aren't meant to come true." He looked down, shifted in his seat, reached for something in his pocket, and tilted his head.

A silent exchange, so common and so familiar.

Miles waved his hand in the negative while nodding to dismiss him.

While Havoc took his much needed smoke break, he and Kimblee cleared away the paper plates, used plastic forks, and scrunched napkins.

"Marcoh was eating with the Ishvalans, you know," Kimblee picked up a piece of paper from the table and started to examine it. Radio records and a list of call signs. The alchemists were assigned _Eight-Alpha_. He took a mental note. "…uniform and all."

The Lt. Colonel managed to swallow his surprise and sudden envy. "I see."

The other man was regarding him, maybe expecting some reaction. "Whatever," Kimblee dropped the paper. "What are your plans on rebuilding?"

"I want to start with re-building residential housing and a school." Miles unrolled a laminated map and laid it out in front of Kimblee, pointing to where their camp was right now. "Then I want to restore a waterway or aqueduct system. I'm going over some of the plans with the lead engineer."

The alchemist furrowed his brows. "A waterway? You mean a sewage system? Do you have any idea the amount of time and manpower that would require?"

Miles pretended he hadn't even heard. "I want to start a classroom of sorts immediately so the Ishvalan children have a place to go in the day. They'll study there while we build a school for them. We'll need to build a hospital at the same time."

"Government run hospitals and state organized schools aren't institutions most Ishvalans are familiar with," Kimblee reminded Miles harshly, "it'll surprise me if they will even take anything Dr. Marcoh gives them." Miles paused for a moment, surprised. But it wasn't like he didn't know- Marcoh and Scar had spent weeks trying to re-educate him on _his own damn culture_ , but even though Miles could recall facts and tidbits, his mind worked like an Amestrian.

Havoc returned from his smoke break, and joined into the conversation. "Shouldn't we make do with the classroom and focus fully on residential buildings first, Sir? You're asking the Ishvalans to continue to live in tents for what could be months, or years."

"And we'll need to build a base of sorts," Kimblee added, "we're going to be here for two decades, and some of us _forever._ We need a permanent building, not just a tent."

Miles breathed out, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Mustang went far too fast with this. Mile sdid understand the colonel's enthusiasm, and his belief that anything could be done. Miles himself used to think the same way… until he was put in charge of it all.

Havoc spoke up also. "If more materials are going to come, I'm going to need a bigger warehouse to receive it all. The supply tent we have now is barely enough room for storing consumables. What are we going to do when we start having accountable items?"

Miles really didn't like the idea of putting the priority on building Amestrian military institutions before helping the Ishvalans. From the point of view of the Ishvalans, it would look terrible. Yet he knew they couldn't properly sustain the restoration without if they were constantly pushing on the edge of violating regulation. Coming into power, Fuhrer Grumman repeatedly claimed that his administration would be run on _accountability_ and _reliability_ , and he promised that he wouldn't make the illegal concessions that Fuhrer Bradley did.

This just made the restoration a whole lot more difficult.

"We'll need Scar's input on this," Miles decided, surrendering. "But a waterway is possible, no?"

Kimblee and Havoc exchanged glances.

"You've seen the state of most buildings that are left," Kimblee said, "they can't simply be rebuilt, since the difference in material quality will cause structural weaknesses. And especially if you want to build a waterway system, that'll require re-modeling the entire province. Those houses need to be completely destroyed first." He raised a hand over his face and examined the tattooed sigil, a glimmer of madness coming back to his eyes. Miles shuddered and looked away, his hand unconsciously groping his pockets to check that the remote was still there. Kimblee put down his hand. "Then, we'd have to remove all the wreckage and rubble before we can re-build. Maybe we can transmute some of those metals and salvage them somehow, but we'd have to separate them into their separate elements or else transmutations won't be possible."

Yes, Miles recalled the metal bullets embedded in every ruined wall. Some streets were so dotted with bullet holes that they looked like the surface of salt shakers. Kimblee's tour rid him of any illusions he might have had. He remembered the skeletons.

"We'll need to consult Scar on what he feels needs to be done first." Miles was hyperaware of the fact that he had no choice but to delegate the responsibility of planning to Scar. He felt increasingly useless, like Scar was the head and he was merely the arm. "At some point we have to give the dead a proper funeral rite. Let the Ishvalans have some closure."

"Good idea." Havoc nodded. "I tried to take a walk today… couldn't do it. Not in the middle of all those bones. I don't know how the Ishvalans do it."

"The first days must have been hard," Miles told him, "but Ishvalans are resilient people." He looked hard at Kimblee, recognizing that despite his somewhat unpredictable nature and shady past, the man was the devil's advocate he needed among the swarm of his subordinate officers who only wanted to stroke his ego. Lt. Havoc would never straight on oppose him. Scar understood the needs of Ishvalans but didn't understand what needed to be done on the military side. Capt. Veiras was a wily man who did whatever he could to move up the ranks, and that included going along with whatever was assigned to him. Non-commissioned soldiers and state alchemists wouldn't even directly speak to him. He needed someone with Kimblee's expertise and guts.

Over a laminated map and a half empty packet of cigarettes, Miles appointed Kimblee to Head Alchemist. Most of the state alchemists who'd committed crimes in Ishval released from the military after the war. Those that were still alive were made to answer to their crimes. Surprisingly, very few decided to return to Ishval to shorten their sentences. They'd rather serve out full sentences in prison than return to the land they'd destroyed. After all, there were only a few people with any significant war crimes under their belt, and they were all either killed by Scar or here already. These state alchemists in Ishval now were not soldiers; they needed someone to take charge of them.

Giving Kimblee a leadership role would also force him to report to Miles once a day. Part of Miles reasoned it away as needing to keep the close eye on the dangerous man, but another part –the greater part- rejoiced because Kimblee _challenged_ him. If it weren't for the exchange they'd had earlier on in the day, Miles would never have worked up the courage to make that phone call.

And now, Miles was reminded of how his Queen wanted him for his unique point of view despite what others thought. The rule at Briggs was always survival of the fittest. Strength, in all its forms, was exalted above all. But strong men became weak when they weren't constantly fighting, constantly being challenged to adapt and overcome.

* * *

End ch. 5

* * *

Sorry for the late update. As I'd mentioned earlier, I'm on military training right now. I didn't have much time to write or post this chapter (this site is blocked by the network at my base), so it took a longer. Thanks for all the amazing reviews! They are such an honor to read.

A few points.

1\. "Who likes ice cream" is a legitimate trick that higher ranking military personnel will play on unsuspecting privates. This is cruel but necessary, haha. Kimblee was in sore need of some trolling.

2\. I thought about letting Havoc bring his company in. But I work in supply, and to allow him to do that would make me cringe forever. The reasons Miles listed are the real world reasons why doing something like that is highly unrecommended. Also, it was to assert Miles' authority and to give a more realistic tone to this restoration. No, the people won't cooperate easily. The building won't be easy. Getting funding won't be easy. I just wanted to get it out of the way so I won't have to address this potential opportunity later on.

3\. Miles and Scar have fundamental misunderstandings about the nature and limits of this project. They will eventually get on the same page later on. **This chapter is only the FIRST DAY. Woo hoo!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Kaysi**

Among the Gunjans, the _Hajra_ were known as the most fearsome of rebellion groups. They were strict in their recruitment, malicious in their training, remorseless in their tactics. They were the only rebel group that fanatically opposed letting women join their ranks. Among the Hajra, it was known that when a woman touched a weapon, even if it was by accident, the weapon became sullied. It was known that any warrior who picked up the weapon to use it next would be met with a terrible end, being distracted by the unclean female energies imparted on the weapon. Whether it was a spear, dagger, rifle, machine gun, rocket launcher or pistol- the moral of the story was clear: that women were not to take to arms.

But as the supply of male recruits dwindled to death, illness, and cowardice, even the staunchest traditionalists were forced to bend the rules.

Though she was trapped in the body of a woman, the ancient men believed her soul once belonged to a lion.

The Hajra men whispered that she was to be feared, that women were perhaps the superior warriors. After all, men fell in battle when the energies of women diverted their attention. If a woman could be properly trained to fight, then what could distract her from her task?

It was with this same sort of hawkish determination that Kaysi forged onwards, her sword-brother Mansoor at her side.

What seemed like an entire lifetime ago, the Dalihans believed that Ishvala swore to them a promised land, and they only needed to sacrifice in faith in order to receive it. The Gunjans, on the other hand, thought them cowardly and believed that their promised land was to be broken out of its shell by war and blood. The Amestrians were a scourge upon their peoples, sullying their way of life and the will of Ishvala. Only by washing the country clean with Amestrian blood could Ishval become the glorious land that Ishvala promised.

That was why they fought. That had been the motivation keeping Kaysi from collapsing on those long night patrols and grueling week-long raids. She used to hunger for her mother's cooking, for a bit of bread from the baker's basket. Kaysi was not born of Gunjan blood, but she became one of them when she chose to fight alongside them.

Yet in the end, it had made no difference. Together, they watched as Ishvala abandoned them to death and starvation. It was hard to fight after that, after having watched their families empty their lifeblood on the ground and felt the world they grew up in come tumbling down. Kaysi couldn't find it in herself to go on after she saw her comrades tied up and beheaded, her mother thrown down a well, the man she loved writhing in pain and praying for her to end his life. It was hard to fight after that, and Kaysi escaped into the mountains with the rest of her shield siblings. They couldn't bring themselves to beg for solace in the Ishvalan slums in Amestris. The Amestrians would never let them live- the Hajra had done too much. Running to the slums would bring certain death the rest of the survivors, those innocents whom the Amestrian state deemed harmless enough to eek out a meager existence in its ghettos.

To escape death by the hands of Amestrian state alchemists, the Hajra fled across the mountains into Drachma and dispersed. Some joined the Drachman army. Some tried to find work in villages. Some failed, others were successful. Some even raised families.

But when the time came, when the news of New Ishval arrived in Drachma, the beast stirred in its lair. The lion woke.

Any real Ishvalan with the blood of the Old God coursing through his veins would never truly feel at home anywhere else. The Promised Land beckoned Kaysi to return.

Even if she had nothing, even if she had no one… she was determined to begin anew.

Those who served in the Drachman military or who had families were hesitant to leave, but others packed all they had and set out on the long trek back over the mountains that separated Drachma from Amestris. They left in groups, and it was out of sheer luck that her former sword-brother came tumbling into her inn for a flagon of beer just as she was preparing to leave. It was true that they could have entered through Fort Briggs, but neither of them trusted that they wouldn't be killed. The story of New Ishval still seemed too good to be true. Even if it were true, the former fighters didn't know how the rest of the Amestrian military still regarded them. In Drachma, they were cut off completely from the going-ons of Amestris for years, and they'd rather not take chances.

They weren't fighters any more. Neither of them were who they once were.

Unlike the Ishvalans who were fenced into slums in Amestris, Drachma held no ill views against the small group of Ishvalan refugees, and more or less allowed them to live as citizens in their country, so long as they gave up their rebellion and took on worthwhile trades. Drachma was always short of able workers, since young children rarely survived the winters to grow into capable adults. Kaysi, once a rifle specialist, had become a cartographer and de-facto innkeeper. Mansoor, once known in Old Ishval as 'the Butcher that Rides', ironically became an actual butcher.

They marched for a week and a half, thirty-three miles a day, through wind and storm and hail and the endless cold nights. They were drawn to New Ishval like men with their heads on fire searched for water.

The journey past the Gunjan mountains was far more dangerous than the two of them expected. Carrying only chunks of dried meat, stiff bread, the clothes on their bodies, an extra change of socks, four canteens of water, field dressing, and a bit of sugar and salt, they had to push their scared donkey up the steep slope.

The countryside was still savagely beautiful- sure, the destruction was terrible in some places. The open bellies of Amestrian tanks were turned up towards the sun in roads too narrow to conceive of their use… Spent casings and shrapnel littered warzones at the edge of villages, and pieces of scrap metals were buried in the poplar trees and fruit orchards that peppered the landscape. Their fingers and toes were completely numb by the end of the first day, and they could barely see the sun from the harsh snow whipping at their faces. At night when they pitched their tents, the wind crashed against the tent, casting demonic shadows against their faces as they simply shivered next to each other, terrified of falling asleep in case their fire died out.

Their goat fell off the cliffs on the seventh day. They saw its eyes rolling back in its head, its exhausted hooves desperately clamoring for foothold on the slippery slope… But they could not pull the animal back, and they were forced to watch it lean back past the point of no return and slowly tumble down the face of the snowy mountain. The wind was so strong; they couldn't even make out a single bleat.

Fortunately, blessed be to Ishvala, by the ninth day they had cleared the mountains. Even here, the remnants of war could be found. Even in the most remote crevices between the huge and pristine snow capped mountains, unexploded Amestrian bombs of all sizes could be found. Mansoor had been keen on explosives during his career as a geurilla, and naturally gravitated towards the barrel-like objects with a sort of childlike curiosity… and Kaysi had to pull him back to keep him from picking them up.

They passed by deserted villages that were devastated by the war, but also a few settlements where people still lived. One particular village was nothing more than a few donkeys, camels, and horses, and a few mud dwellings built around a space big enough for a truck to drive through. The villagers were high cheeked and narrow eyed, and Kaysi recognized them as belonging to one of the old Gunjan clans. The villagers were astonished to see the two and immediately offered them hospitality, warm water, and a plate of kebabs.

Kaysi and Mansoor asked them if they knew about the restoration, and the villagers had a second shock. _No_ , they said, _no we did not know_. The distrust was clear to see, and Kaysi could tell that even if they were offered the chance to live in a rebuilt Ishval, they would not want to leave. The provinces of Ishval were an Amestrian creation after the annexation, rounding up those Ishvalans who lived in scattered villages and penning them into controlled spaces like animals. After the destruction, many survivors managed to return to their former settlements.

"Our lives are fine as it is now," said one farmer, "this is what my forefathers have done for centuries before me. I don't want to have anything to do with those Amestrians."

"Ishval is ruined," another added, passing a plate of rice towards Mansoor who gratefully accepted with both hands. "The Aerugans abandoned us. They said they would help us re-build our land if we fought the Amestrians. So we took their weapons and we fought their war. But when we were done, when our country was destroyed, where were they? We believed they would help us, Jarizia be damned, and look what's happened! Ishval is ruined. Ruined."

"She is your wife?" One of the village elders pointed towards Kaysi, who had been silent so far.

"She is my sister," said Mansoor, "her husband died in the war."

"That's too bad," the elder lamented, "too bad. She could live with us if she wanted. I have a boy who would love to marry her."

"She has a marriage lined up in Kanda," Mansoor lied, flashing his boyish smile. Kaysi said nothing, just silently took what was given to her and uttered a few words of thanks when it was appropriate. These Gunjans, she knew, were of a traditional mind and would not expect a woman to speak of her own accord. In a culture where foreigners were judged by how strictly they adhered to religious tradition, she did not want to bring any apprehension upon the two of them.

Anyways, she was simply exhausted. Her body was not as young and energetic as it used to be. It took all her energy to push the rice into her mouth and swallow. After eating and fielding the villagers' curiosity, they slept well for the first time in more than a week. The next day, with the blessings of the village elders, they were off again.

On the fifteenth day, they arrived.

The destruction here was worse than they could have imaged. It was no wonder that many Ishvalans who lingered in various parts of the country were hesitant to return, to participate in this 'restoration'. The sight of upturned tanks, destroyed roads pockmarked with shell craters and deeply etched with tank treads, and mutilated telephone poles were familiar to Kaysi… but the silence was not.

During the war, the deep and resonant rumble of artillery always pervaded the air at almost every hour. The screams of shells and the guttering of machine guns almost became the sound of home… but the most terrifying sound of all were the Amestrian helicopters.

But today, the sky was a burnished blue, filled with fluffy white cotton clouds, and utterly silent. There was still beauty to be had so close to ground zero. Here, there were no more villages and settlements- only a few wild animals grazing amongst overturned and rusted trucks. On their way into Kanda from the west they came to walk beside a gorgeous river that had a color the likes of which Kaysi had never seen.

"It looks like a rainbow," she sighed, and was awestruck at the beauty of the water. It wasn't a single color, but rather looked like a jewel raised up to the sun; it was in turns jade and turquoise and sapphire.

"Is that liquid jewel?" Mansoor asked, stunned at the sight. "By Ishvala, what is causing those colors?"

"It's because of the minerals seeping into the water from the foundations of these mountains."

"Beautiful," he murmured, "I wonder what it is called."

"I don't know," Kaysi replied, but the amateur cartographer in her hankered to know. She would find out. After a small break by the water's edge, they reluctantly left this tiny paradise in search for their destination. The land in Kanda province was dry and mostly arid, but it was nothing like a desert. Ishval was very beautiful, but when Kaysi tried to convince the Drachmans of this, no one believed her.

"I thought it was all desert," they'd assumed, incredulous.

And so she would spend her nights drawing elaborate maps of Ishval- of its mountains, lakes, rivers, oases, ponds, fields, valleys, forests… and, of course, the desert that separated the major provinces but in no way made up the entirety of the landscape.

A few hours of walking and casual chatter later, they heard the familiar roar of an engine behind them. An Amestrian vehicle rolled up to their side, raising a cloud of dust. The Gunjans clutched their scarves close to their face to avoid breathing it in, staring at the huge truck with intense apprehension. A young soldier stuck his head out the window and waved to them, offering them a ride.

Kaysi refused. She couldn't shake the possibility that they were all going to be shot in the back. She'd seen what these Amestrians were capable of. Innocent faces and polite smiles meant nothing to her any more. The vehicle headed off, and they walked on behind it.

Soon they saw a long column of dark smoke rising up to touch the sun.

"What is that?" Mansoor wondered, "what are they burning?"

"That's not a cooking fire," Kaysi told him in a hushed voice. They were almost to the province center, where New Ishval was being built.

As they headed into the camp, they strolled past huge districts of what used to be houses, completely reduced to rubble and gravel. Kaysi found it hard to breathe. This used to be her home. But the sight was bittersweet; it seemed that the area were was re-built. Skids of concrete blocks, bricks, and wooden planks lined the streets, rows upon rows of them. Nearing the center, the two saw the foundations of new houses forming among the rubble, and the frames of its walls stood up straight and tall. What looked like giant trenches were dug in the ground between the rows of houses, fenced off with pylons and cordon-lines. They had to walk carefully on the sides to avoid falling in.

It was another mile when they saw the huge number of sleeping tents, coloring the desert grey and green. Clothes strewn on clotheslines lent some color to the scene, bright reds and dark blues fluttering in the slow breeze. When Kaysi smelt it, she knew where all the people were.

She followed the pillar of smoke to the source of the fire, where at least a hundred of their people were gathered in a huge circle. Amestrian soldiers stood at the sidelines, and they regarded their group carefully when they approached. They did not stop them.

It was a funeral pyre, the largest Kaysi had ever seen.

"…and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females…" A deep, rumbling voice carried over the pyre, on which a giant pile of bones lay smoldering.

"Do you recognize that voice, Mansoor?" Kaysi couldn't believe what she was hearing. "That rumble, that voice like thunder."

"Thunder," Mansoor echoed, a light coming to his eyes. "How different he looks. With that scar on his face, he looks nothing like his brother." The former fighter, now butcher, caught his slip of the tongue and abruptly stopped speaking.

Kaysi didn't like to think back on what could have been, the life she could have had _. After all, it had been her fault_. She turned from the pyre, unable to face the source of that voice. "…to those whom you chose to die, O Ishvala grant them peace in your eternal kingdom, help them die in faith…"

She couldn't let anybody know… she couldn't… it was too much to bear. And Buramos… The monk with a voice like thunder, and his brother… That brave, passionate man who wrote her long poems and called her sweet names… When she returned, it was too late. The memory of his last moments haunted her, and she forced herself to look into the fire in an impulsive bout of self-punishment.

Her eyes grew wet from the heat and acrid smoke. She'd already mourned enough; the pyre no longer meant much to her. In all the tribes of Ishval, death was honored the same: men and women and children sank into the earth and were cast to the winds by fire. It was an inevitable fact of living in such a harsh environment. Once someone died, their bodies were to be destroyed by fire so that their souls wouldn't wander the earth lost, trying to find their way home. It had been hard for her people to leave those bodies behind. The longer the body remained, the more deformed and desperate the soul became. In a hundred years, such souls of bodies not properly laid to rest sometimes became corrupted into _kiyyiah_ , demonic spirits.

Sometime between then and now, the prayer ended. The Ishvalans around them started to hum in a low, sad tone. A hand came to touch her shoulder, and Kaysi wheeled around to face a man in a blue uniform. His face sent her emotionally reeling- dark skin and red eyes like hers, like the rest of her people.

"Did you only arrive today?" He spoke to her in Ishvalan, and she could only give a cautious nod. Part of him was familiar, but the other part was grotesquely alien. She didn't know what to make of it. "Do you want to pick out a sleeping tent?"

"Yes," Kaysi agreed, now suddenly aware of how tired she was. Her mouth was parched, her tongue feeling like a ball of cotton in her mouth. She was also very aware that she and her partner smelled terrible and were caked in dust and sweat.

The soldier, an officer by the complicated look of his rank insignia, glanced between her and Mansoor.

"I see," he seemed to understand. "Follow me."

With one last look at the crowd that was too focused on the pyre to notice their arrival, they peeled away from the mourning Ishvalans and towards a section of grey tents marked 3-B. Now that they were closer Kaysi could see that each occupied tent was marked with the names of their inhabitants. The empty tent they came to was grey and staked to the ground with sturdy metal rods. The soldier flipped the tent flap back and the two Ishvalans saw that the sleeping tent was quite well stocked with cushions, thick wool blankets, a small table edged to the side, and a large chest with a number lock for personal possessions. Window flaps with mesh screens could be rolled up or down according to the weather. A singular lamp had its cord running out of the back end of their tent to meet with cords from other tents. A slight distance away from their section of tents marked "3", a mobile generator was buzzing away, supplying the tents with light and electricity.

"Thank you," she told him, amazed that the Amestrians had given them far more than she'd expected.

"I would show you to the ablutions tents, mess tent, and everything else…" He shifted on his feet, wiping the sweat from his face. "But I'm needed elsewhere, I apologize. I hope the two of you can find your place around." He motioned towards a general area where a number of tents were. "Beyond those tents there is a giant daytime tent where most of your people spend their time. You may want to head over."

Kaysi's mind kept stumbling over how he said _your people_.

"The tents marked with a patch of blue with the alphabetical letters I, R, and F are military tents. The only military tent the two of you may need to find is marked with a patch of red." He paused for a moment, and then seemed to remember the rest of his sentence. "You can't miss it, it's that giant dome with the huge light on top. It shines like a star at night- that's the supply tent. Almost anything you need, you'll find there."

"Thank you," Kaysi said again, a little overwhelmed. "And who are you?"

The man chuckled and scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. "I'm Lt. Colonel Miles. Pleased to meet you both, Navasti." He extended his right hand towards them.

Likely he expected Mansoor to shake his hand, since men usually spoke for women in old Ishvalan culture. But not this time.

Kaysi extended her own hand out and touched it to his face, as was the custom in her ancient land. When she drew her hand away, it left a dusty print on his cheek. "Navasti."

* * *

 **Isle**

After the great pyre, it seemed as though a dam was broken. The people came out of the tents in the day to sing and dance. Amestrian soldiers sat cross-legged on the dirt ground during their smoke breaks to listen to the folk tales told by old men and women. Now the camp tallied two hundred and thirty-one, and a spirit of excited restlessness set the Ishvalans abuzz.

The man known as Scar seemed everywhere at once, ducking into the CP at various times in the day to confirm points with the Amestrians, then scurrying to the supply tent to pick up extra blankets or materials. The people loved him, as she knew they would. He had an easy authenticity about him- even if his words were sometimes harsh and his face was often severe, he was honest and genuine and very kind. Isle felt a twinge of regret at not having made the effort to get to know Scar when he was still young and naïve and called himself Buramos.

Four groups of Ishvalans from former Gunja arrived a week ago, but they recognized they were in the minority and quickly fell in with the Kandans, even reluctantly tolerating the alchemists enough to help pass up the materials for their ceaseless transmutations. Perhaps they realized that they'd be living in tents for the rest of their lives and their children's lives if alchemists weren't there to raise a set of walls in half an hour.

A residential district was being re-built first, and at the same time a school and hospital was slowly being raised from the ground.

New Ishval would look nothing like what it was before, Scar had told them. The Amestrian state was planning a huge aqueduct and cistern system that would run across the province. A classroom was set up under the shade of an open tent, and children of various ages sat cross legged on blankets as former teachers gave their lessons. Most of the teachings were religious, for lack of other skilled teachers. Isle could tell that the Amestrians weren't happy with this- they wanted to institute a school that taught geography, chemistry, history, and art. They were in the process of locating suitable scholars amongst the returning Ishvalans. There would be many changes in the years to come.

The Gunjans, despite their current placidity towards the Amestrians, were still bloodthirsty by nature. Occasionally they set out in hunting groups to hunt wild horses, ibex, and jackals. When they returned from their long hunt, they'd hand over their pelts, skins, and choice bones to the Kandans to fashion into clothing items or instruments that they distributed among all of them. The meat they offered to the pacifist Dalihans who would spit roast it and lay a feast for them all. Over the last few days, Amestrians added more sections to the tent to expand its width in order to accommodate the dancing and feasting.

Isle spent her days in Marcoh's clinic, advising him on native flora and natural remedies. While some Ishvalans preferred a witch's hand to that of a foreigner, others came specially seeking the Amestrian doctor.

"He was delivered by an Amestrian couple, right before my wife passed away." One man carried his sick child, who was seizing in his arms from fever. "Please," he begged, "please save him again."

"I will do everything in my ability," Marcoh had promised him, and the distraught father had tentatively passed his boy over into the doctor's waiting arms.

While Marcoh always posed himself as the humble student to Isle's teachings, Isle herself was learning a fair bit from the Amestrian doctor. The theories of pathology were strange to Isle, having always understood illnesses as an energetic entity and not as a body's bio-chemical reactions to virus, bacteria, or parasites. Even the words were foreign to her. She studied the tiny white pills the doctor fed to his new patient, and couldn't determine what they were made out of. Yet, overnight, the boy's fever broke and he stopped seizing.

The so-called "feasts" seemed to happen weekly, though there was never enough meat to fill their bellies. Still they relied on the Amestrian mess tents to feed them. Until they could arrange their own garden plots, farms, and animal pastures, they would continue to rely on what the Amestrians offered them.

Yet the feasts were a great opportunity to breathe life back into their former way of life. Over time, some Amestrian soldiers had taken to joining the feast and sharing a bite or so of ibex, to listen to the strange Ishvalan instruments and watch the women's skirts twirl.

This week, the Kandans had a surprise for her. Aris the baker presented her with an oud, a wooden instrument with the body of a halved pear and strings strung tight over its neck. It wasn't the lacquered, finely strung instrument she used to play before the war, but the feeling of holding one again in her hands, the set of the familiar weight against her body still lit up the witch's face.

"I made it for you," Aris told her, a flush high on his cheeks. "I hope it's correct, I-I've never made an instrument before. Jai-avum taught me how." Isle smiled; of course Juriv would know. He would often come listen to her play in the slums of Old Ishval, back before she was forced to leave her oud behind when the state alchemists came.

Isle was not well loved by most Ishvalans- they could sense the magic in her hands and they kept their distance. But now, in the company of Gunjans and Kandans and Dalihans all feasting together with a few Amestrian soldiers on the sidelines trying their best to eat with their hands, the Ishvalans no longer cared. They hooted and hollered as she made her way to the center where Old Man Juriv sat with Scar and Lt. Col Miles on each side. Juriv's eyes shone with joy, and he reached out a pruned hand to touch hers that now rested over the strings.

"I ask that the Mighty Creator bless the hands that made this instrument," she prayed aloud, "and I pray that He will bless all the ears that will now hear it sing."

She kneeled on a rug and began to tune the oud, settling it on her lap and running it through a series of scales. It didn't have the same warm, mellow sound of an oud carved from old wood, but nobody else could tell. Her fingers were clumsy and rigid from years of not practicing, but the music came back to her like coming home to a loved one. The scales dove deep into a lingering, melancholy melody that swung up and down like the dunes of the desert. The muscles of her fingers began to loosen, and Isle lost herself in her long lost art. She never composed, never wrote her music down. She played what came to her, each song an unknown being, a piece of virgin territory until it formed on the strings of their own accord.

The tent fell silent, so silent, like a valley in the dead of night. Isle wavered; horrified that perhaps her music sounded tainted. The people were always uneasy around her, afraid that she would turn them into bugs or put a hex on their children.

She faltered, and slowed. A deep blush of humiliation passed over her face. She should have just accepted the gift and left. She shouldn't have done this. She caught a glimpse of Scar's face, contorted in a mix of confusion and what looked like pity.

Just then- like a blessing, a Dalihan, marked by the scarf he wrapped over his head, called a _toriyeh_ by their peoples, passed a bamboo flute to his lips. Before long a clear melody strained over Isle's improvised strumming, and children began to shriek in delight. Old man Juriv swayed in his seat with the tune, which now reminded Isle of the shepherds of her childhood calling their flocks out to graze. From the Gunjans, a set of precious hand drums emerged now, with shells covered with goat skin and cow skin stretched and overlaid over the top. The skins were bound together by a complex braid of ibex sinew, lending tension to the shell. The head of each drum boasted the telltale black center painstakingly made using innumerable layers of starch paste, responsible for the drum's deep natural overtones. The drums looked new and must have taken weeks to build, and only a skilled craftsman could have done it. Amazed, Isle strummed with renewed vigor, her heart rejoicing.

Two Gunjan men took a drum each, and by the shared color of their _kuffiyeh_ scarves Isle could tell they were brothers. Metallic rings gleamed from their fingers that now kneaded and tapped on the black faces of their instruments, allowing the drums to croon out an eloquent beat.

Before long, their audience was thrown into the ecstasy 0f the unknown song. In the high trills of the flute, the song was one of joy and faith. In the mellow strumming of the oud, the drone of grief and pain became a dull echo. And, with the sound of the drums that raised the heartbeats of all who heard, the song transformed into one of life and death, of light and dark, and the people raised their hands up, lost in song, to touch the face of God.

* * *

 **Kimblee**

The first time Kimblee ate a live oyster, he squeezed a lemon wedge over the thing and watched it twist and contort, as though screaming without sound.

He felt like the oyster now, entranced by the improvised music of the Ishvalans. He'd refused to participate in the feast and managed to sit far from the center of the tent so as to distance himself, but nonetheless he stayed. He did not like to run from the things that deeply disturbed him.

The dancing, so joyous and carefree, reminded the Crimson Lotus of the countless people he'd killed- people who would have sung and danced just like this. He wasn't surprised that this made him uneasy. He understood that though he would never feel sorry or ashamed of what he'd done, that wouldn't stop him from feeling _something_. Not for the first time, he felt the urge to write.

But he couldn't. He absolutely couldn't. Writing was too dangerous; it was actually terrifying. To write, he'd have to willingly walk into that void where ugly things could emerge unbidden and howling to be recognized. It reminded him too much of the homunculus' belly- after that, he'd stopped writing entirely.

The tent began to fill with smoke and the air became balmy as more Ishvalans became drawn into the trancelike dance.

He sensed someone's eyes on him, and he sought out the challenge. Scar and Juriv, who had moved to the side of the tent to avoid being trampled by the dancers, were gesturing to him.

Kimblee gave a cursory glance behind him, thinking that perhaps they were inviting someone else.

He weaved through the dancing shadows to reach the High Priest and his pupil. The old man reached out with a quivering hand and touched Kimblee on the back of his wrist, which jarred him and made him recoil. This was the first time that Kimblee was able to clearly take in the old priest's face. His memory floundered for a moment before settling on one hazy image.

His expression gave him away, because the old man smiled bitterly. "My pupil told me that you have an incredible memory. I see he is not wrong."

"Yes," said Kimblee, scrambling to recollect the rest of the hazed memory. "The first time we met, it was only two years into the war and I was stationed at a checkpoint between Kanda and the nearby village of Farzah. You were jammed into the back of a pickup truck with thirteen other men, and I questioned you."

Juriv's smile faded, a look of awe replacing it. He hadn't expected that Kimblee would remember their first encounter; perhaps he himself had forgotten. "Glory to Ishvala," he muttered to Scar, "that is unbelievable."

"The second time I met you, it was during the final day." That sanguinary day would be ever etched into his memory. "I'm… surprised that you are alive."

The remark was sharp, and Scar's fists clenched. "Watch yourself, Kimblee."

But Juriv was not fazed by Kimblee's barely veiled distaste. "I am alive and well, thanks to Ishvala's mercy. Why don't you sit with us, alchemist?"

Kimblee knew that Ishvalans were known for their unparalleled hospitality, but something about the old man's comments felt terribly wrong. By all rights, Juriv should detest him- such was the logical way of human nature. The fact that he displayed no outwards animosity but also seemed to welcome him made the tiny hairs on Kimblee's neck stand up.

But, because he did not like to run from what challenged him, he sat.

"My pupil tells me that you will remain here for the rest of your life. Tell me, what is your plan after your alchemy is no longer needed here?"

"I plan to travel with the Lieutenant Colonel to set up aid in the other provinces," he replied, and it appeared to be the right answer to both Ishvalans Kimblee was a little amused to think that they were probably relieved that he wasn't going to be staying.

"I wish Miles would stay here," Scar said, his lips drawing into a thin line. "He's missing the chance to grow with the culture. If he keeps traveling to the different provinces, he'll just see an endless cycle of destruction… Who wants that?"

Juriv, too, sighed and murmured how Miles was too brave for his own good.

But Kimblee knew the true story. He knew why both he and Miles found the idea of traveling more palatable than staying behind in Kanda. No one else could understand except maybe Marcoh, Mustang, and Hawkeye- those who'd seen the destruction and who identified with the perpetrators.

Despite becoming de-sensitized to the destruction, Kimblee never quite became indifferent. For him, his days of distress and shame were already in the past. Now, with wonder, he looked at the destruction and noticed that despite the willful human (or not) element, some great natural cleansing was perhaps underway. The cycle of birth and death, rise and fall, peace and war…

For a true Ishvalan returning to the land and finding it destroyed, to see it being rebuilt was a pleasure and soothing balm. To Miles and Kimblee, who identified more with those having destroyed it, they were caught by a sense of urgency to discover what else was out there. Kimblee understood that he could justify this as standing up to greater challenges elsewhere- once Kanda was up and going, they would go to the villages to administer aid and the other provinces, finally bringing Ishval into the fabled economic equilibrium seen under the times of Armuun the Conquerer.

But it was also possible that he was simply running, and he hated this nudging thought that danced at the periphery of his consciousness. Kimblee was at home in destruction, and complete peace and order felt slothful and unsettling in comparison. He would never be able to live an uncomplicated and domestic life, like what Maes Hughes used to boast.

He was shaken out of his reminiscing when Juriv again put a wrinkled hand on the back of his. The old man, Kimblee realized, had eyes of incredible warmness and kindness that beckoned children and men alike to sit and listen to his stories.

"Let me tell you the tale of Shirin, Sulman, and the well."

Kimblee withdrew his hand. "I know this story quite well."

But Juriv was not deterred. "Then you know that Sulman and Shirin, the first man and woman, lived in a lush oasis until they gave in to the evil serpent _kiyyiah_ and moved that rock that Ishvala ordered them never to touch. A well rose from that hole in the ground and Shirin and Sulman fell in it. The world on the other side was a dry desert, and this is the world we now find ourselves in. Like Shirin and Sulman, you gave in to evil. You need not carry this weight on your shoulders. Your sins are heavier than most, but you need not carry them."

This time, Scar spoke. "Crimson Alchemist, for the sake of your soul, admit your crimes so you can repent." An angry breath caught itself in Kimblee's throat when it dawned on him that this was an orchestrated and planned effort.

So the Ishvalans pitied him.

"…Repent? Ha. You compare me to Shirin and Sulman, and what do they have to repent for? Because they moved a rock?"

Scar's voice was slow and calm, but there was no kindness in his gaze. "They were tempted by their circumstances, much like no doubt you were te-."

If there was one thing Kimblee hated above all, it was those people who assumed to _know_ him.

The Crimson alchemist sprang to his feet. "I'm not afraid of your God, _avum._ If the snake _kiyyiah_ , this evil demon you speak of, managed to convince Shirin and Sulman, why didn't Ishvala simply argue with them? Why take their paradise away if He was supposed to love them? And if He was angry, why wasn't Ishvala angry at the snake demon too? Or does He simply have no power over the snake demon, over evil?" To this outburst Scar was left gaping, momentarily stunned.

More than a decade ago, Kimblee was fresh onto the field and serving as an artillery officer in Gunja. He and his men laid anti-tank and anti-personnel mines in the ground to deter Gunjan guerilla forces from advancing onto their territory.

Unbelievably, the geurillas somehow managed to convince the sick and elderly in the local village that there was great honor in volunteering to walk first across the potentially mined fields. The elderly believed that if they sacrificed themselves by clearing the way of mines, their souls would fall through the holes in the ground and reach paradise on the other side. Just as Shirin and Sulman fell through the ground onto earth, so too by their sacrifice they could fall through the ground into heaven.

Eleven elders volunteered, and only two survived to the other side. The geurillas marched in the footsteps of those elders, and could not help but step over their dead bodies.

Two more villagers died trying to retrieve the bodies.

Kimblee learned this delightful piece of Ishvalan folklore from a captured guerilla fighter prior to putting a bullet through his skull. At that time, Kimblee was devastated by the idea that the elders had been mindlessly deceived to sacrifice their lives. He called the geurillas cowards for using the elderly as blast shields instead of directly challenging their Amestrian enemies. He was young and naive, believing still that there was justice to be had in war and that collateral damage was avoidable. How much he had changed. Now he only felt that the deceived elderly were foolish to be so moved by the promises of religion.

It was with this deep acrimony against the illogical manipulations of faith that Kimblee exploded against Scar. "Could it be that Ishvala is not all powerful? If Ishvala made Shirin and Sulman, then He must have allowed them to be susceptible to the temptation of evil. So, not only does He not attempt to correct them, He punishes them when the real criminal is the serpent! Tell me, Priest, where is this snake demon now? He still lives in the oasis while the rest of you toil away imagining you're guilty of some silly crime! Why exactly do you Ishvalans believe your God to be just?"

Sometime during his little monologue, a few Ishvalans stopped dancing and gathered around to watch. Kimblee could not see their faces, could not tell if they were angry. He could tell that Juriv was horrified and too confused to even react. It wasn't that the High Priest wasn't prepared to participate in an ideological debate; it was the disrespectful manner that Kimblee challenged him that completely put him at a loss. That didn't matter. He was focusing only on Scar.

But instead of reflecting back his bitterness with a poisonous barb of his own like Kimblee expected, Scar's brows knitted in a look of profound concern. What was most troubling was that at its depth was a spark of what could be… understanding.

Kimblee lived to rile people up, lived to disturb them, unsettle them, make them question. Such things filled the hungry void. But his words fell on Scar's ears and bounced off. This disturbed him more than he could have imagined.

Juriv motioned to Scar, and Scar nodded. The old man painfully dragged himself to his feet and nodded to Kimblee before hobbling off away, leaving the alchemist in a conversation with Scar. Kimblee watched Juriv disappear into the crowd, watched the red sash that denoted his status sway as he took his uneven steps. He turned back to the Ishvalan speaking to him.

"I remember you saying that you didn't live by principles. Do you remember, Kimblee? This was at the hospital after Armstrong brought you back. You said that human life is cheap. You said that principles didn't serve you, that you couldn't afford the luxury."

"That is what I said," the raven-haired alchemist tentatively agreed, unsure what Scar was trying to get at.

"You can believe that from the point of view of a killer, but now you're not. Those words come from the mouth of an Amestrian man living in the luxury and extreme liberties that the land of Amestris has to offer in comparison to a country like Ishval."

"It's silly to destroy yourself for the sake of beliefs and faith," Kimblee maintained, but even he could see the truth in Scar's words. Most of all, it was Scar's insistence that he was _no longer a killer_ that clung to him.

"You're wrong again," Scar said, "you said that principles didn't _serve_ you. That's not the point of faith, not the point of belief. In a poor country like ours…" he looked to Juriv and to the number of Ishvalans that had gathered, and now Kimblee could see that their faces were not hostile but were instead solemn. "In a poor country like ours, the only happiness we get is by serving our beliefs and principles. It's our only consolation, our only source of comfort." He paused, then added, "you used to believe in something too, didn't you?"

Now, more than ever, Kimblee simply wanted to run. Yes, Scar was right. He no longer felt the urge to fight; now he felt exhausted and a cold sweat had broken out over his brow. He couldn't tell if it was the night becoming colder, or if he was trying to keep the curtains of his mind from being ripped open. How disgusting and messy that house really was, under the guise of being neat and in order?

"How would you know?"

Scar simply shrugged, tilting his head thoughtfully. "No man reacts with such bitterness against faith unless he himself has been wounded by something he could not explain. I know because I battled against this story too, and your arguments sounded very similar to mine after I witnessed the total destruction of my country."

Kimblee hid it well, but he felt his façade slipping. No one had ever said anything like this to him; no one had ever challenged him in this way. Always he'd managed to hold the upper hand, portraying himself the way he knew would bring the beasts out of other people. It was fun to see them unraveled and vulnerable, but now Scar had done the same to him, and it was utterly alien. He didn't want to feel like he and Scar had anything in common. He would rather see the two of them as separates, but Scar was forcing him away from conflict… forcing him to see the similarities, feel something like compassion…

"I think my master does not yet comprehend the width of the ideological barrier that divides us Ishvalans from you Amestrians. He believes that you are unable to see Ishval's destruction from our point of view." Here he stopped, and he smiled. "But I know you can, and you are repenting in your own way. We only meant to tell you that we could help you if you are suffering."

To his silence, Scar continued, "this is a challenge to me, Kimblee. I was not happy when my master said that I needed to let go of my anger, and suggested I befriend you. I see that it this is not possible, but…" The rest of his words crawled slowly against the Crimson Lotus' consciousness, touching against him but not being absorbed.

How was it possible that Kimblee could walk through a warzone and not feel moved, and yet be completely displaced by such a simple and kindly gesture of another person trying to make the effort to understand him? This other person had purposefully made himself vulnerable in an effort to connect to him- _him_ , of all people. Kimblee, who was that hated cockroach that raised a primordial terror in people and yet would not die… Something inside him was crying out, scratching at his insides, begging him… to say what?

He listened to the little being inside him, that tiny voice that somehow drowned out Scar's speech. That tiny voice was rejoicing, screaming a hallelujah, and begging him to say _yes_ and not argue for once. It occurred to Kimblee suddenly that all universe began with a _yes_ , when nothing said _yes_ to something and the galaxies were born in an explosive celebration of creation. One atom said _yes_ to another and eventually through this chain of _yes_ life was formed on earth.

It also came to him now that Scar had finished speaking and was looking at him expectantly. A small crowd of Ishvalans stood at the edges of his periphery, waiting for some response to a question that Kimblee hadn't even heard.

"Yes," he said, not knowing what he'd just agreed to and frankly not giving a damn. Scar's shoulders relaxed and he offered him a cup of tea. It had gotten cold, but Kimblee received it anyway. The Ishvalans returned to their dancing, and the normal rhythms of life melded back together and closed over the wound of their encounter. Kimblee felt like he'd just released a breath he'd been holding in for more than ten years.

* * *

 **Scar**

He woke from a dream of Old Ishval. He dreamt that it was morning and he was nine years old. He walked down to the river and washed himself in the devastatingly beautiful waters that resembled swirling pools of jade and turquoise. As he washed, he was shaded by groves of birch and poplar trees, and young spring blossoms dotted the riverside with white, pink, and yellow. In the distance, the southern Gunjan Mountains were cloaked by fog and topped with snow, but nonetheless Scar could see that they were green as emeralds at the base. The air was clear, fragrant, and the sky was painfully blue. On a rock at the edge of the river, a white heron with a purple throat chirped at him.

When he woke, he recalled that the river in his dreams was called Snake River, and it ran west of Kanda. He'd never lived close to it and he'd never bathed in it, but as a child he was told of its great beauty. In the middle of the civil war, the Amestrians had built a dam in an effort to deny water from Kanda and the villages that bordered the river. When the Gunjan geurillas bombed the dam a few years later, the water rushed to regain its lost territory, flooding all the villages and cities in its path. The Gunjans were blamed for those deaths. Scar had heard about it even in the heart of Kanda, and those months were tense times for Gunjans living in the province.

He mourned for a few moments, saddened by the past. But there was no time to feel sorry for himself, and Scar shook off the nostalgia.

For a few weeks, it was almost like everyone had fallen into a rhythm. In the mornings, Scar rose early to hold a mass prayer alongside Juriv, who had officially taken his place as High Priest among the New Ishvalan community. Meanwhile, the cooks, led by Juniper, would be cracking eggs and mixing porridge for breakfast. Gradually, the Amestrian side of the camp awoke and men ran to and fro with shaving kits in one hand and boot polishing kits in another. After helping Juriv lead prayers, everyone headed to breakfast.

Gone were the segregated lines- now there was a new system. Since an overwhelming majority of Ishvalan men and a moderate number of women hankered to get to work helping re-build their country, they took to assigning themselves to pre-existing Amestrian sections. From the first days onwards, the Ishvalans just kept showing up to where that section was working, so Miles decided to just "attach them". Since they'd need to get to work at the same time, these Ishvalans now gladly fell in with their Amestrian sections and lined up for meals accordingly. It was wonderful to see Ishvalans joking with Amestrians, working together, sweating together, and swearing profusely at their mistakes. Breakfast was served until nine o'clock. By eight, working sections had already finished and started to head to their work areas. From eight to nine, the elderly Ishvalans, women, and young children made the mess tent burst with song and gossip.

After breakfast, Miles would call a daily Operations Report in the CP tent consisting of himself, Scar, Kimblee, Lt. Havoc, Cpt. Veiras, Dr. Marcoh, and WO Ross. Scar would inform Miles of how their project was developing and what areas needed to be improved, or bring other things to Miles' attention. Kimblee would report on the progress of his alchemists, any administrative actions to pass on, and how his Ishvalan 'attachments' were behaving. Lt. Havoc always arrived to meetings with a loaded clipboard, and would tell Miles about any logistical shortfalls they were having, whether funding wasn't coming through, and any significant purchase orders Miles needed to personally sign off on. Capt. Veiras, now having taken charge of over eight separate sections of Amestrian soldiers, described how the sections were working and gave updates on their progress, and would include the state of morale amongst the Ishvalan 'attachments'. Dr. Marcoh would speak mostly of any supply shortfalls, and occasionally requested rides to transport critically ill patients to the closest Amestrian hospital.

WO Ross…

Well, WO Ross was late to meetings half the time because he tended to eat quite slowly. Either that, or he _really_ enjoyed being in the presence of giggling Ishvalan women.

But when he did make it to meetings, he'd inform Miles about any crucial pay or administrative backlogs, difficulties, upcoming promotions, charges, or whether something was lawful according to state publications.

Even though they were in a foreign land, they were still bound by rules. They couldn't just do as they liked. There were still limits, and the Ishvalans had to recognize that. Scar's duty was to describe what the Ishvalans wanted and try to formulate what the Amestrians could do about it. The Ishvalans were big dreamers, and Scar faced the challenge every day of reminding them that the Amestrians were not a source of limitless wealth and influence.

On the flip side, however, he was himself exasperated at the Amestrians' restricted budget and furious that Mustang hadn't somehow given them more money to do all the things they desperately needed to do. Sometimes at night he questioned whether Mustang truly held Ishval as one of his top priorities as he'd claimed. He felt like his people were being abandoned again, just like how Aeruguo had left them high and dry after the civil war. Scar was secretly very afraid; he knew that the Amestrians had a time limit on how long they planned to be here. What if things couldn't get done before then? He had an image in his head of a man being led up a giant staircase only to have the steps below him suddenly taken away, leaving him stranded with nowhere to go.

It was hard sometimes to temper his concerns around Miles, and the other man was often suffocating under his own burdens. But at the end of the day he knew the two of them would laugh it off with a kettle of tea. They were both equally frustrated and also equally proud of all they'd managed to do so far.

After jotting down everyone's points of note on his personal agenda, Miles would take a moment to think and then formulate appropriate action plans on what needed to be done. Once everyone understood, they went their separate ways.

Lt. Havoc would run back to the supply tent, where a long line of soldiers invariably had formed, waiting to pick up materials for their sections. Sgt. Cross would be scurrying about, trying her best to give them what they had according to the requisitions they'd put in. Dr. Marcoh returned to his field hospital, where that woman who played the oud waited for him to begin the day's assessments. Dr. Knox had arrived a few days prior, but immediately fell victim to heatstroke and was now hilariously one of Dr. Marcoh's patients. Capt. Veiras would go pass on key points to individual section commanders, who now knew the routine and all gathered outside of the CP each morning so Veiras didn't have to run a marathon around New Ishval every day. WO Ross wobbled to his desk in the CP, would sit down, and then sigh like he'd just walked fifty miles.

On some days, when there was news to share with the community, Scar went to the day tent to inform everyone that was there- mostly old people and women sewing or making crafts, as by then the children were all learning at the makeshift classroom. It was the best way to get information across, since the women and elderly would pass it on when the working Ishvalans returned in the evening. One night a week he led a sort of 'town hall' that was open to everyone but only the elderly and influential men seemed to attend. On the small chance that a woman or two showed up, Scar did everything he could to make them feel welcome.

Before the extermination forced him out of Ishval, he wouldn't expect a woman to voice her opinions at a town hall. But now, having lived in Amestris for years under a culture of extreme liberties, Scar had come to enjoy hearing women speak of issues that extended beyond their household. In fact, many of the women that came to New Ishval boasted a wide-ranging set of skills that were normally not tolerated in Old Ishval. As men went off to fight or were killed during the civil war, women were drawn into the local workforce and many began to run their own businesses. The cultural change was subtle to an outsider but enormous to those who remembered Old Ishval. Indeed, the surge of female rights was the result of outdated social customs being shaken and adapted due to the unique stresses triggered by the war.

After such meetings, Scar went to study old Ishvalan texts with Juriv, now being formally groomed to become the next High Priest, whether he liked it or not. He might stroll by the field hospital to visit some of Marcoh's patients- on most days he could also make out a small lineup of women, young and old, waiting to be seen by a familiar female face. Sometimes he even visited Veiras' sections to see how the school was coming along, to offer insights on where certain things should be located, and to help carry some supplies up to waiting soldiers and Ishvalans alike. He would always see Aris there, hammering away with a smile on his face- the man was becoming well liked.

A few days ago Scar stopped to speak to Aris and the rest of the Ishvalans working on the school, asking them how they felt about working with the Amestrians. They shared jokes with Scar and laughed with him, and did not seem uneasy at all next to their Amestrian colleagues. One man stopped and pulled one of the Amestrian soldiers to him, whispering mischievously to Scar, "I taught him how to use Ishvalan greetings."

"Oh?" said Scar, grinning from ear to ear. A warm rush of pride almost drowned him; he could barely believe this was happening.

"I taught him khobhur chasti, _how are you,_ but he can't pronounce it." The Ishvalan looked to his Amestrian companion, nudging him. "Do it, Nick!"

The Amestrian, Nick, was red with embarrassment. "Kobor shasti?"

Aris and Scar burst out laughing, along with the rest of the Ishvalans there. Nick punched his Ishvalan friend playfully on the arm. "I'm trying!"

Too bad his Ishvalan friend was keen on embarrassing him as much as possible. "It's not kobor, it's pronounced _hobhur_. Roll your tongue up and pronounce it from your throat. Kobor means lips. You just said 'you are lips'."

"Aw man… hob… hobor. Hobher. Hob…"

"Hahahaha!"

The two men turned back to their work, bickering playfully with each other as they hammered. Scar watched them both with a sense of profound wonder.

"Isn't it incredible?" Aris wiped the sweat off his brow and put his hands on his hips, proudly looking over what was soon to become the first school of New Ishval.

Yes," Scar agreed, "I never thought it'd be possible… so early on." Some part of him still believed that they were being tricked, that this was too good to be true… But he pushed aside that unfounded insecurity and allowed himself to smile.

"When can we build a bakery?" Aris suggested, nudging Scar playfully. "I'll run it out of a stall made of old Amestrian tanks if I have to."

Scar laughed at the joke, but realistically it wasn't very far from the truth. During the civil war, parts of old Amestrian military equipment, the shrapnel from mines and rockets, and artillery casings were gradually incorporated into the local landscape as roof thatching, fence reinforcements, and other things. Local craftsmen molded the scrap metal into cooking apparatuses and weapons, with everything else being traded to Aeruguo for the most basic of amenities.

On most mornings he tagged along with Kimblee and his team of alchemists to watch what they were doing.

After the feast when Scar and his master appeared to have gotten through the Kimblee, both men felt more at ease around each other. Scar was at first apprehensive, but now was impressed at the change that had occurred. Something had definitely shifted between the two of them, and Scar was happy for it. He could only thank his master for pushing him to practice humility and recognize that like him, Kimblee was also hurting in his own way. Scar had been terrified of this, thinking that if he could fully accept Kimblee then he'd become a worse person somehow.

But now, having forgiven, he was at peace with himself. Miraculously, he was now also at peace with everyone else and everyone seemed at peace with him. Miles was beginning to join Scar for tea on most nights, talking sometimes of his work during the day but asking more questions about Ishvalan culture than ever before. They had finally slowly become good friends, each accepting the other for their faults and limitations and connecting as "Scar" and "Miles" instead of forcing a connection under the guise of being "Ishvalan".

Kimblee, too, seemed to be warming up to him. In the first two weeks, Kimblee complained endlessly to Scar every time he came around about how he needed to teach his alchemists how to transmute various types of metals and meld them together to form alloys without accidentally exploding them. "I can't believe that I, the Mad Bomber, the Crimson Lotus, am now tasked with teaching these _goddamned chicken nuggets_ how to _not explode things_."

Miles was with Scar that time and he almost doubled over laughing, and the priest couldn't blame him.

Still, the Crimson alchemist managed to hold a semi-gentlemanly air about him- in the way he walked, even in the way he slung his tunic on his shoulder. He liked to work in his white undershirt, and it took some time for Scar to get used to seeing him like that- the same way he'd looked in that last moment of red vertigo chaos.

He'd never even heard of these other state alchemists before- most of them were young and baby faced, and only two of them wore the state uniform. The rest were simply state-funded researchers who happened to be able to build a wall or two. Some couldn't even do that, since their alchemy might be specialized- like making certain biological agents, or, chillingly, animal genetic experimentation.

Scar remembered Tucker's chimera, and his heart wrenched to see the young alchemists eagerly discussing their findings. Sometimes he lamented that science was winning the battle against faith, and what a terrible thing that was. Amestris was a society founded on science, and Ishval was founded largely on faith. Scar prayed that one day New Ishval could be a place where both science and faith could be celebrated alongside one another… For although science can allow a man (or woman) to splice genes to create human-animal splits, that society would rely on faith to step in and remind science of its limits.

The alchemists were able to construct simple structures very quickly, but the unskilled ones found it difficult to transmute detailed items like electrical cording, piping space, or pipes themselves. Thus, they went about constructing foundations, walls, and roofs while Kimblee would go around inspecting their work and adding in the detailed elements that only a skilled alchemist could easily transmute, like blowing off perfect square openings for windows. When he wasn't creating, Kimblee was destroying the houses further down so the huge supply trucks that ran back and forth could easily carry the debris away.

Since alchemy was still considered a taboo to the Ishvalans, only a few of them volunteered to be attached to Kimblee's section. Among them was a soft-spoken giant of a man that physically reminded Scar of the Strongarm Alchemist. He claimed he was a butcher, and Scar laughed to be reminded of another butcher he knew in Amestris, and his "passing housewife". The Ishvalans shoveled the wreckage from destroyed houses into neat piles, and then scooped them into giant bins to be picked up by the supply vehicles.

It was exciting for Scar to see the houses being rebuilt so quickly. By helping to pass up heavy loads of materials, he could receive instant gratification when he watched a block of concrete transformed into a smooth wall in a matter of seconds.

But there was a reason why alchemy wasn't the tool of choice to construct buildings. What alchemy boasted in sheer speed, it sacrificed in attention to detail. Kimblee had to come by and approve of the materials before any transmutations could take place, calculating in his head whether the materials were sufficient to build the thickness and height of walls they required. Most people didn't think about the calculations involved in alchemy- but by transmuting a huge block of concrete, the alchemists were effectively manipulating its physical structure. If there weren't enough materials, the wall would still be built to size but would be weak and fragile, easily cracked. For example, Major Armstrong was known for creating huge structures from the ground, using what seemed to be an inconsequential amount of material. What most people didn't realize was that he was merely _stretching_ what already existed, and the 'artistic alchemy' he produced was not very strong structurally- most of it was actually hollow on the inside.

Everything had to be perfect- if walls were made bent, short, too wide, or not completely straight, they had to be broken down and re-built. It was too difficult for the alchemists to raise walls with window-sized openings; they turned out misshapen and bent. So the alchemists used precision-detonation to blow out windows and doors. This was a skill that Kimblee had to teach them, so occasionally they made mistakes and the entire wall cracked and fell over. Those too had to be re-built. It was an arduous and mentally exhausting process, and at those times Scar was grateful for Kimblee's expertise. He wished he could help, but he promised Juriv and the Ishvalans that he would abide by Ishvala's laws and refrain from using alchemy. Scar found he actually missed the feel of transmutation under his palms- when he watched Kimblee perform transmutations, he actually felt his tattoos _ache_.

He wasn't sure what it meant, but it was starting to bother him. After a certain amount of time, they would start to burn. Scar attributed it to the heat, but that couldn't explain how they sometimes flared up even when he wasn't near an alchemic transmutation… Sometimes he felt it when he ate at the mess tent, or even for a brief moment while he meditated with Juriv…

It was all very strange, and Scar wasn't sure what to make of it. If only Evram was here… his brother would know what was wrong.

Even now, his tattoos ached while he threw himself into shoveling rubble and clearing the way so the alchemists could do their jobs.

They left the school and hospital, which required more complex engineering and very careful and slow building, to the soldiers. As such, the alchemists were able to raise about one or two houses a day, only because of the supply and transport limitations that staggered their materials. They couldn't transmute concrete out of nothing, after all, and so the alchemists had to wait every once in a while for Sgt. Cross' supply deliveries of concrete blocks, metal frames, nails, and wooden planks to catch up to their furious pace of construction.

During breaks, the alchemists and Ishvalan attachments liked to sprawl around taking naps under the shade of crude looking sun-shelters transmuted out of the ground. Kimblee never seemed to rest- he was always pacing about inspecting, waiting, calculating. Scar really did admire his drive. He really hadn't expected Kimblee to take on this job so sincerely. He supposed he'd been wrong about the man. Often times, during these lulls, they contemplated all that they'd built.

As Scar and Miles had decided with the help of a camp-wide vote, the houses were constructed in accordance to Old Ishvalan style. Square, brick and concrete houses- nothing spectacular, no complicated architecture involved, just the way Ishvalans liked it.

Around noon, a rations truck began making a round around the fledgling province, delivering boxed lunches prepared by Juniper's team with the help of Ishvalan women and children. Every day after lunch, Scar would return to take up studying again under Juriv.

Training for priesthood was already grueling- long ago, before the war, Scar's final test had been to exile himself to a desolate and dry desert cavern known for housing _kiyyiah_. After a week of meditation in that cave with only a small stream for sustenance, Ishvala and High Priest Juriv deemed Scar acceptable. That had been a chilling experience. Scar still had memories of those ugly things he saw in that cave; grotesque demons, spectres that visited him in the night. One day he'd awoken to find a lion's tracks all around him.

Training to become a high priest, then, was even more intense. Miles couldn't understand it at all.

"Why would you sacrifice your chance to have a family?" Miles asked him one time, full of confusion. "That's a steep price to pay."

"It doesn't mean that I can't love," Scar had replied, "it just means that I cannot take a woman to wife, and I can't have children. The position of High Priest is an honorable one, passed by study and not lineage. Then again, I gave up my chance for marriage when I became a priest."

Miles didn't look like he was satisfied with his answer, but Scar wasn't looking to explain himself to anyone. He'd told Miles before about the friend he used to have that disappeared, and how she inspired him to become a priest. Miles only teased him and suggested that perhaps as a child he was infatuated with her. Scar didn't like how Miles simplified his complex reasons to just 'being infatuated', even if it was a joke.

To become a High Priest was his decision to make, after he saw how much his people loved him- _him, a frowning man with a ruined face._ As Scar began to relax in the company of his own people, the lines on his forehead and around his mouth softened. The tension between his brows loosened. Even the stress in the muscles of his neck released. The people embraced him.

Scar was well on his way of becoming a de-facto Chieftan of Kanda, but he didn't want to be.

"I don't want to be their Chief," he confided in Miles, "I'm not a politician. I can never be. Please, don't force this on me." He knew it was what Miles and Mustang had wanted. They were grooming him to take over governing New Ishval when the re-building was done, or even when Kanda was on its feet and could take over its own reconstruction. While Miles and Kimblee sought to travel to other provinces and provide aid there, they meant to put Scar in charge of things in Kanda. But Scar couldn't bring himself to accept it. He wasn't a political leader. He was no Chieftan or King. He was just a priest. Priests didn't dabble in the workings of politics.

On the rugs with Juriv, pouring over old texts and practicing ceremonial rituals, Scar forgot his worries. Yes, this was his home.

For a few weeks, for about a month, everything was perfect.

…Then the accident happened.

* * *

End Chapter 6

* * *

Oh no! Accident!

Holy crap, that was a long chapter. Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! :o I'm sorry I couldn't reply to all of them.

I originally wanted to publish this chapter without Kimblee's part, since he also features in the next chapter (hint hint accident)... but I wanted him to have an actual elongated interaction with Scar in which HE is being put out of his element instead. Kimblee could be vulnerable too. I also wanted to show that Scar was loosening up and was actually very kind. This new role is changing him, and changing others as well.

Yes, the story of Sulman, Shirin, and the Well is based on the Adam and Eve story.

I also thought that it wasn't really possible that there were no Ishvalan survivors AT ALL living in the entirety of post-war Ishval, so I conceived of villages and settlements where some Ishvalans remained and lived very simple lives. I also considered that it wasn't economically feasible or efficient to only rebuild Kanda and leave Gunja and Daliha ignored, so I plan to tackle those provinces too. It won't be in such detail like I've tried to put here- the focus will be on self growth of our main characters (Miles, Kimblee, maybe Scar) and brief interactions with locals in those areas. Let me know what you think of this please!

Thanks for reading :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Kimblee**

It was almost dinnertime, and the alchemists were all exhausted from a long day's work. They had finished the previous area assigned to them, and were paintstakingly sweeping for mines in the next grid location.

Though Kimblee considered mines as an inferior art form and was not fond of them, he nevertheless admitted that they were devastating in their own way. During the war, the Amestrians dropped or buried hundreds of millions of mines in Ishval, and the Ishvalan resistance planted tens of millions of mines in retaliation. A large number of these mines were never triggered or detonated.

The threat of unexploded ordinance, UXO, was incredibly real. The alchemists could not take the risk of a mine exploding while they were working, or exploding years into the future while families lived in these houses.

To Kimblee, there was almost something very beautiful about that thought. A pale pink rosebud waiting to bloom, the unexploded mine waited for its victim like a forlorn lover… He found the danger of a minefield invigorating, and he felt alive from his fingers to his toes. Always in the alchemist's life there were flashes of light, like catching a familiar face in the reflection of a mirror. There was nothing quite like a job that put one's soul in jeopardy. There was no day fuller than one in which he walked with death at his heels. His alchemists, of course, didn't share his sentiments.

Mines were split into two general categories: anti-vehicular, and anti-personnel. The anti-vehicular mines tended to be large, and most possessed high metal content. However, the chances of finding one of these mines in the former city districts were close to none.

The direct danger to New Ishval was the smaller anti-personnel mines, grenades, and close-range mortars. They injured, maimed and killed in a variety of methods. Kimblee's favorite mine, if he had to choose, would be the T1-86 Bullfrog, made in Amestris. It was a mine the size of a bar of soap that, when triggered by seismic sensors, would jump up in the air to the height of a man's waist before exploding, spreading the effective radius of its deadly metal shrapnel.

Laying mines was easy, but to clean up after them was nightmarish. Here, Kimblee's alchemy was practically useless. There were huge differences between the composition and size of mines- some used TNT powder, some used liquids, and others were part of a huge system of other mines daisy-chained together. No method of transmutation or alchemic system known to current science would be able to detect these mines all at once without potentially triggering them.

Granted, the majority of these mines were more likely to be found on roads and along strategic areas outside of Kanda, but the Amestrians knew well that mines had an uncanny way of moving location on their own.

Technically, in theory, mines were supposed to be charted and mapped. But during the civil war, only the mines placed by Amestrians around their important compounds in the Ishvalan countryside were ever mapped. The tens of millions of other mines planted or dropped onto Ishval were never tracked. Unexploded mines could range from the size of a golf ball to the size of a small car, and the smaller ones tended to become dislocated as time went on. Rain, soil erosion, and bad weather could carry mines from the mountains into the valleys and villages below. Mines could also be carried by rivers and estruaries into the canals of cities, only to be picked up by a curious passer-by with disastrous results.

So they scoured the area with metal detectors, which honestly was the most tedius and time-consuming aspect of their job. Every minute piece of metal had to be ecscavated and examined. Spent casings, coins, bolts, nails, aluminum foil, batteries, wires, scraps of metal… everything that triggered their metal detectors had to be treated as a potential UXO, and the process was excruciating. The younger Ishvalan attachments weren't taking the job very seriously, and some were even picking up potential UXOs and examining them as if they were nothing more than toys. Kimblee made the decision to send the attachments home, annoyed by their lack of effort. Many Ishvalans were not aware of the dangers of UXOs, especially those who had little memory of the civil war.

In every area they'd cleared so far, the alchemists found between one to four mines, all in the ground. They were airdropped mines, unexploded grenades, and the odd mortar. In areas of war in the countryside, Kimblee had seen a wider variety of mines placed in ceilings or in the trunk of trees.

They took a brief break, some alchemists smoking and talking amongst themselves, others napping. The Ishvalans had left by now for the mess tent, having no more work to do for the day. The classroom finished in the afternoon, and children often spilled out into the streets to play. The alchemists' working area was always cordoned off with bright pylons and caution tape… but some children were more mischievous than others.

When the break was over, no one heard the children shushing each other to remain quiet, playing some sort of one-sided hide and seek among the overturned piles of dirt where the alchemists had dug for UXOs.

Kimblee turned his back and fumbled in his pants pocket for the packet of cigarettes Havoc gave him.

He hit the cigarette, and just a moment later there was a sound that Kimblee hadn't heard in a long time. A loud, deep ear-rendering _thump_ , accompanied an angry _crunch_ and the familiar musical buzz of shrapnel.

He dropped the cigarette he was holding. "Get down!"

His alchemists dropped to the floor, scattering and crouching. Dust and phosphorous plumes engulfed the air around them, and all time seemed to stop. The volume of the blast was incredible, and left a high pitched ringing in Kimblee's right ear. It'd been so long since he'd heard the explosion of a mine, and the sound was as ugly as he remembered.

Since the Crimson Lotus knew the sound of explosions by heart, so he was able to identify the mine as the rare and expensive T-8 Firefly. It was a small Aerugan mine the size of a fist composed of liquid ethylene glycol dinitrate in a plastic container, which would explain why it was not found by the metal detector. He also knew, very intimately, the sound of limbs being torn apart and the spray of blood against a surface.

Within five quick steps, Kimblee was making his way towards the ruined wall when one of the alchemists started to scream.

With the dust cleared, he could now easily make out two distinctly human shapes amidst the rubble. One was crouched over the other, who was partially buried by the debris of a nearby ruined wall that had collapsed during the blast.

"Medic, medic!" Some silly alchemist was yelling to no one in particular. There were only five medics in New Ishval. Three were studying under Marcoh and Knox. One was accompanying Veiras, and their medic was himself ill for the day. The alchemists were all alone.

"Bring the first aid kit," Kimblee turned his head and yelled, and his men fell over each other in their haste. The Crimson Lotus was never an avid student of medical alchemy, and he couldn't guarantee that his alchemy wouldn't _accidentally_ make the situation worse.

He went down on one knee to look the first kid in the face. A girl, by the looks of it, and for a second Kimblee thought she must somehow be Amestrian- her hair was a dull yellow, like the endless wheat fields of the countryside. But, alas, her eyes were red as rubies and swollen now with tears. She was shaking, her petite frame collapsing in on itself as she stared with terror up at the Mad Bomber.

She couldn't have been more than ten years old.

Kimblee now shifted his gaze to the other child, a boy. He felt his knee get warm and wet, and realized that the boy had completely lost his left leg to the blast, and now the entire left side of his body was crushed under the fallen wreckage. His face was contorted by pain, a look that Kimblee knew so well.

An alchemist stumbled in with the first aid kit, took one look at the boy, and started to yell incoherently. None of them had ever seen anything like this before- they were young and green, unused to the grotesque sight that didn't even make Kimblee flinch any more. Crimson Lotus tuned him out completely, letting his voice become background white noise while he swiftly opened the kit with a practiced hand.

He was once a soldier, after all.

"Get on the radio right now," he commanded, feeling his body abuzz. "Let Zero know what's happened." _Zero,_ the call sign for the Command Point, where Miles would be working. Once Zero acknowledged what had happened, it was up to them to contact Marcoh's team. "And give him our grid coordinates."

With the pair of scissors provided, he quickly cut away the rest of the boy's left pant leg that obstructed the blast wound. His hands were now sticky with blood, but Kimblee was too focused to notice. He took out the tourniquet kit and unraveled it, clasping and fastening it around the boy's gushing stump of a leg, now more or less gone from the knee. He could see the white jut of splintered bone beneath the mess of split nerves, sliced muscles, and broken tendons. The tourniquet slipped a little, then settled. Kimblee knew that now he had to control the hemorrhaging. He dug around for a pouch of tactical grade blood-clotter. He ripped the packet, careful to avoid getting it on his hands, and spilled its contents onto the writhing boy's wound. In a matter of moments, the smell of burning flesh could be detected as the chemical compound worked its purpose and cauterized the bleeding.

Kimblee wrapped a length of field dressing around the wound and wound it against the tourniquet. He really wasn't thinking anymore- he was overtaken by adrenaline. He didn't care much about saving the boy's life… the smell of blood excited him. He didn't bother much with trying to comfort the child- he didn't even care to look at his face. Everything was a haze, with Kimblee in the eye of the storm, calmly tying a perfect knot. His training took over and muscle memory guided his movements. He turned his attention now to the rubble, and starting pulling the debris away. Other alchemists who were too scared to help before now joined in.

"Wait," Kimblee raised a bloodied hand, just as one alchemist was lifting the largest slab of concrete that held the boy's arm crushed under its weight. It would be a miracle if the limb were still attached. "If we remove it, he might bleed to death. We don't know what damage there is under there. There isn't enough clotter to stop that bleeding. We have to wait for Marcoh." He spoke now to the alchemist who he'd put on the radio, "did you manage to contact Zero?"

"Zero acked it and passed it on to Bravo, Sir. They acked it just now." _Bravo,_ which was the field hospital's call sign. _Ack,_ a shortened radio lingo meaning 'acknowledged'.

"Good, then they should be on their way."

Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the little girl again. She had stopped crying by now, and was staring straight at Kimblee with such a look of resolution on her delicate features.

"Save him, Kimlee," she begged in a tiny whisper.

 _Oh._

Kimblee's photographic memory went wild before settling on the face of a young girl who stopped him from leaving the Ishvalans' day tent, asking him if he was 'Kimlee the elk a mist'.

"It's you," he realized. Now he looked down at the boy and really _saw_ his features for the first time. An oval shaped face with a mousey nose, just like hers. "Is this your brother?"

"Yes," the girl said, "his name is Asir." Speaking her brother's name urged fresh tears down her ash-smeared face. "We- we were just playing hide and seek... We- we're s-sorry!" Kimblee wasn't really listening to her- his attention was caught by the radio crackling outside. He realized that he should probably try to comfort Asir and try to tell him dumb little things like 'you're going to be fine, just hold on' like they taught them during the combat first aid lessons.

Kimblee knew children weren't idiots. They knew they were going to die when they felt it, and to lie to someone before they died was a silly thing to do. There were great realizations one could make if one knew one was in the midst of dying, and fooling them would rob them of the opportunity. So Kimblee said nothing, just opened a bottle of water and started to pour tiny amounts into the boy's mouth to keep him hydrated. The kid was already going into shock, the whites of his eyes turning yellow and his lips blue and quivering. If Marcoh didn't come soon, the girl wouldn't have a brother any more.

But the part that bothered the alchemist most was the fact that the T-8 mine was distinctly Aerugan. Amestrians never employed the use of this mine in populated districts because it was too expensive and took too long to hook up properly to the charge. Few Amestrian sappers had any opportunity or reason to plant mines in Kanda district. All of the mines and UXOs found were from airdrops, mortars, and hand-grenades. Such an advanced form of anti-personnel mine as the Firefly had no place in the Amestrian fighting order.

With no other likely alternative, Kimblee came to the uneasy conclusion that the only person who could have planted this mine must have been an Ishvalan local or an Aerugan agent.

And, from the fact that it was so easily triggered, that it was planted very recently.

* * *

 **Dr. Marcoh**

This was enormous.

The accidental injury of an Ishvalan child under Amestrians, _especially under a team of alchemists_ , was the absolute worst thing that could happen at this point of their operation. The fact that it was a remnant from the war that had returned to haunt them only made the situation worse. Dr. Knox, busy with treating a soldier that came down with heat exhaustion, quietly watched the chaos unfold around him.

"Save the boy," he said to Marcoh as the doctor hastily assembled his tools. "Don't let him come to me."

Tim was a little surprised; Robert Knox wasn't known for being very talkative. But now was not a time to ponder. Marcoh only nodded. He and his chosen two medics kept hushed as they mobilized, but the Ishvalans waiting in front of the mess tent still noticed their fast, nervous steps as they hurried to their vehicle, a stretcher in tow and cases of medical supplies.

They jumped into the fastest vehicle they had and tore off towards Kimblee's coordinates. Meanwhile, Miles ordered an airlift to follow Marcoh's team in case the child had to be immediately evacuated to an Amestrian facility. As soon as Marcoh and his team settled into the vehicle, he grabbed the field radio from the driver's hand.

"Eight-Alpha, this is Eight-Bravo. Sound check, over." For a few excruciating moments, all he heard was static from the other side.

 _Beep._

Kimblee's voice filtered over the radio, grainy but readable. "This is Eight-Alpha. Loud and clear. Send, over."

"What is the state of the casualty, over." Everyone connected to the radio system was likely listening in to their radio conversation, and some signaler in the CP would no doubt be compiling a log of every word they said. It was imperative now that they abided by proper radio procedure. Marcoh knew from previous radio exchanges that the patient was in critical condition, but he didn't yet know the specifics.

"Male casualty, eight years old. Missing left leg, amputated beneath the knee," Kimblee replied, speaking slowly and articulating carefully. "Tourniquet has been applied, quick clot has cauterized most of the bleeding. Left arm is crushed under a large piece of rubble. Casualty going into shock, vitals diminishing. Over."

"Ack." Marcoh was wiping his brow with his sleeve now, thankful that Miles had ordered the airlift- already he heard the flutter and buzz of a helicopter trailing overhead. It would most definitely be necessary. "Do not move the rubble, over."

Static. Shuffling. "Say again?"

"Do not move whatever is crushing the arm!"

More static. Muffled speech from the other side, probably Kimblee talking to his section. "Ack, Doctor. ETA?"

"ETA two minutes!" The driver shouted back from his place behind the wheel, his foot fully depressing the gas pedal as far down as it could go. Marcoh repeated the driver's timing to Kimblee.

"Heard," the sound from the other side crackled; the words themselves calm as ever, "we'll continue to stabilize the casualty as much as we are able. Out."

 _Beep._

For the next minute and a half, Marcoh could do nothing but sweat and twitch. The tension inside the vehicle rose to an all-time high. He didn't want to think about the potential implications if they couldn't save this child. Though the Ishvalans so far had been cooperative, Marcoh wasn't a fool. Anyone with eyes and half a brain could tell that the mistrust and resentment still ran deep under the surface façade of amicability. It had only taken the death of a little girl to set off the Civil War. For an Ishvalan child to die in such a manner, even if by accident, under the watch of Zolf J. Kimblee would spell disaster.

Marcoh watched the Gunjans, knew how much they craved vengeance. Some of the Gunjans in the camp now were remnants of former resistance groups who'd killed their fair share of Amestrians in their day. As of now, there was no further cause for ill blood between them, but they were fighters at heart. Indeed, they had the spirits of warriors waiting for their opponents to make a mistake.

And this was a terrible, _terrible_ mistake.

As soon as the driver hit the brakes, Marcoh was already stumbling out with his suitcase in his hand. The helicopter was now circling above them, awaiting direction. The two medics rushed out not long after, carrying the stretcher between them.

The casualty in question was easy to locate- Kimblee's men had given him their exact grid coordinates, and about five of them were gathered there now. There was a little girl there too, caked in dust and sitting on a hastily transmuted chair. Though covered with a fire blanket, she still shook like a leaf while one of the alchemists tried to offer her water.

"Out of my way!" Marcoh pushed them aside, not caring that he could be running on top of buried UXOs. He dropped to his knees beside Kimblee and immediately opened his suitcase.

Crimson had told the truth; the casualty was in terrible condition. The medics dropped off the stretcher, unhinged it, and began to quickly examine the casualty for vitals. Marcoh faced Kimblee, whose hands were smeared with blood. A bit of the stuff had found its way onto his cheek, too. "There's a helicopter outside," he told Kimblee, "prepare for casualty evacuation."

"Heard," the alchemist grunted, rising fluidly to his feet and rushing out of the building. The sun was setting now.

"Light!" Marcoh cried, and one of the alchemists ran in with a flashlight.

"His arm is completely crushed," one of his medics told him behind her surgical mask. "It's likely already amputated."

"The two of you remove the block, and I'll tie off his arm so he doesn't hemorrhage. We need to move him and evacuate him, _now_." He prepared himself with a section of high grade medical tubing, ready to tie another emergency tourniquet. Despite having lost his leg, Kimblee had done an excellent job staunching the bleeding and the boy was technically in a somewhat stabilized condition. However, once the pressure was lifted from his arm it would gush anew, and the boy could bleed to death in a matter of seconds if the wound wasn't properly tied. His medics moved into place. "On three," Marcoh readied himself, moving into a better position to reach the boy's crushed arm. "One, two, three!"

The huge block was lifted and pulled away, and as expected the boy's arm started to spew blood from the open wound where the arm had been crushed and ripped away. Working as fast as he could, he tied it tight around the boy's upper arm, the tubing slipping under his fingers. Still, he managed to tie it in only two seconds, without any more time to spare. Meanwhile, his medics had started to prepare the stretcher. Marcoh started fastening a non-rebreather mask over the casualty's face and attached an IV of Ringer's Solution to re-hydrate and replace lost electrolytes. Next, he reached for a needle and pulled out a 5ml bottle of morphine from a collection. He drew out all of its contents and injected it into the boy's other arm that was now almost completely limp from shock.

"Take him," he ordered, and the medics mobilized immediately. They stabilized the boy's neck and spine before strapping him into a series of long metal poles. They lifted him, fully stabilized, onto the stretcher and strapped him in a second time. Meanwhile, Marcoh grabbed the remains of the boy's torn-off arm and wrapped it in a long length of saline-soaked gauze before dropping it into a plastic bag.

"Where's his leg?" Marcoh shouted, and the alchemists withered from the sheer ferocity of his voice.

"H-here," one of them came forward, shaking, carrying something big wrapped in a towel. Marcoh took it from the alchemist and removed the towel, staring down at the boy's removed leg. The flesh was cold now, a bit discolored from the loss of blood and inevitable flesh degeneration. No matter how many times Marcoh confronted the sight before, it was always strange to see a limb not connected to its body. But Marcoh had no time to be disgusted. He wrapped the leg as best he could with the remaining saline soaked gauze and stuffed it into another plastic bag, reaching into one of his medical boxes and removing packets of instant ice packs, cracking them and packing them in alongside the amputated limbs. By the time he tied up the plastic bags, the casualty was on his way out towards the helicopter on the stretcher, IV tubes flailing about.

The entire thing had only taken maybe a minute and a half.

Marcoh ran after the stretcher, clutching the bags to his chest. Kimblee was helping to secure the stretcher onto the helicopter's airlift hooks, since there wasn't sufficient space for it to land. While the helicopter drew in the stretcher, the medics started scrambling up a dangling ladder. Marcoh passed the bags to one of his medics, and a bottle of morphine to another.

"We're all counting on you," he patted the young woman on the back, and she nodded, continuing the ascent into the rescue helicopter. In about another minute, the aircraft was on its way towards the closest Amestrian critical care facility.

Marcoh took two steps back, and almost collapsed. One of Kimblee's alchemists caught him before he could fall, handing him an opened bottle of water. The doctor had to lean against the wall of a nearby house, taking slow sips of the water and trying to still the shaking in his hand. A few drops of water spilled down onto his tunic, which was now soaked with sweat and stained with blood. He heard the familiar crackle of a field radio nearby, and turned to watch Kimblee methodically re-establishing communications with Miles.

"Casualty has been airlifted," he spoke calmly, slowly. "Casualty appears to have a sister- she is with us now, unharmed. Awaiting Sunray's command, over." _Sunray_ , the radio lingo for the commanding officer- in this case, Lt. Col Miles. He was quiet for a little bit, making little nods to himself as he listened to the response. "Ack, out." He put the phone back onto the radio. "Bring me the girl." He motioned with his hand, and then seemed to reconsider. "Never mind," he formed a halt gesture, and his alchemists backed up. Kimblee slowly approached the girl in the fire blanket, bent down on one knee, and started to speak to her in a soft tone. Marcoh's mouth suddenly tasted bitter from pity, and he followed Kimblee until he stood in front of the little girl, who was clutching the fire blanket over her head.

"Her name is Rina," Kimblee informed the doctor in a low voice when he was close enough. "She was talking before, but now she's probably too scared."

"I wouldn't blame her," Marcoh replied, wondering if the girl wasn't looking at them because she was terrified of his face. No- no, of course not. The poor child just saw her brother come apart at the seams and swallowed by a flying beast. "I'll take her back with me to the field hospital, get her hydrated and taken care of."

Crimson Lotus nodded, absently picking at the scabs of dried blood between his fingernails.

"You… did well, Kimblee. If it weren't for your fast response, that boy would have died in about a minute." Marcoh truly admired a soldier who could keep his head screwed on tight during times of immense pressure. He'd never seen Kimblee ever truly flustered or taken apart by any challenge the State threw at him. Sometimes it was a disturbing thing, watching him go about his day like everything was sunshine and peaches while the bloodied bodies of thousands of Ishvalans lay strewn around him in pieces. But at times like this, Marcoh was genuinely thankful for Kimblee's calm, quick, and precise reaction.

"Mm. I did what I knew to do." For the first time since everything happened, Kimblee gave himself a look over. "Damn, I look terrible." He didn't know the worst of it. Marcoh could see that blood and dust was matted on his hair, and his shirt looked like some abstract artist used it for a canvas. Kimblee seemed to understand that he couldn't go back to the camp looking like this.

"I'll wait for you in the car," Marcoh said, gathering his things and reaching out a careful hand to the little girl. "Hello, Rina. I'm sorry you had to see all that. Your brother is going to be fine. Let's go get you cleaned up."

Kimblee scoffed at the blatant lie, but thankfully the girl nodded mutely and put her hand in Marcoh's, allowing herself to be led to the vehicle. At least she trusted him, the Doctor thought. The Crimson Lotus formed up his alchemists but didn't dismiss them, instead ordering them to report immediately to the CP and to not speak a word to anybody on the way. Marcoh was impressed yet again by how well Kimblee was handling the situation, keeping all possible issues in mind.

When Marcoh reached the vehicle, he offered to help the girl up. The fire blanket she was carrying slipped from her head, revealing hair that looked a burnished yellow in the fading light. "I want Kimlee," she whimpered, still looking at everything but the doctor.

"He'll be with us soon," Marcoh tried to reassure her, too drained to wonder why she wanted Kimblee of all people. "come on. Let's get you in."

But she wouldn't move- the car door stood open. She kept crying out Kimblee's name, progressively getting louder until the Crimson Lotus finally finished and walked up, irritation plastered all over his face. He grabbed her by her little arms, lifted her up, and dropped her down inside the car. Rina stopped crying.

* * *

 **Aris**

By nightfall, all had become clear. Or, at least, every man and woman was convinced that his or her own interpretation of the story was the truth.

Lt. Colonel Miles, the one they called Commanding Officer, issued a formal announcement of the details of the accident. He told the crowd that Asir had ventured into the cordoned zone and had triggered a dormant mine in an area that the alchemists had not yet cleared. Scar stood beside Dr. Marcoh and Miles, exhausted from the long explanation and his numerous failed attempts to calm the people once they realized what had occurred.

For them, Asir's injury was a harsh reminder of the war, and of what Amestris had done. Worse still, they knew Kimblee was associated with explosions and immediately blamed him for the accident. They picked up rocks and threw them, demanding that the man responsible, the _state alchemist_ , came forward to answer for his crime. Even Juriv, the High Priest, couldn't quell their hatred.

They wanted blood, and they wanted the blood of the state alchemist who'd walked their streets during the extermination, who tore their families apart, who Scar promised them would change but surely hadn't.

Aris had only seen the man one or two times, hurrying from the CP to where his team of alchemists worked next. Alchemy wasn't completely foreign to Aris. Unlike other Ishvalans who feared alchemy for its strangeness and immense power, Aris slowly came to understand it. He once knew a man in the Old Province who spent his days and nights studying Amestrian alchemy and Xing Alkahestry, even when his family begged him to put down his dark art. The famous Witch of Dasht, the woman he once hoped would become his mother-in-law, used her own variation of alkahestry to concoct miraculous elixirs that were said to do magnificent and terrible things. The root of alchemy was natural, like the cycles of life and death. He'd never attempted it, but he felt like he _understood_ alchemy each time he kneaded dough under his hands, felt it heat up and loosen, saw it rise and expand in the giant stone ovens of his father's bakery.

To coax a bit of flour, water, yeast, and egg into a delicious loaf of bread was all the alchemy Aris needed. Each evening he'd leave the bread with the Witch, and he'd wait long into the night until the woman he loved returned from wherever she'd gone. He'd dally in the shadow of slums, wanting only to catch a sight of her face when she tasted his bread.

For those simple ingredients to produce a smile like that… Aris knew real magic when he saw it.

Yet when the extermination came, Aris saw alchemy rear its most macabre head. Still, he never blamed the alchemy- he'd seem alchemy heal and give life… His sister wouldn't be living otherwise. It was the Amestrian state that was at fault, and on this Aris held no illusions.

He'd seen the explosions, heard the screams, and watched the sky burst in ribbons of fire and black smoke. He never saw the man who was responsible, fleeing from his shop as fast as he could with all he could carry- two loaves of bread, a few jars of precious spices, a small sack of flour, a bit of yeast. His parents were with the witch, visiting his sister who was recovering from a bad fever. He had to push and fight against the sea of people fleeing in the opposite direction to reach where the Witch worked her magic.

But by the time he arrived, it was too late. He saw his sister's body sprawled across the ground, blood splattered under her head like the dry branches of a crawling thorn tree. And his parents… Aris didn't like to think back on that day, to remember what he saw. Now when he looked at people, he couldn't help but imagine how their entrails must look hanging from their bellies.

It was all the work of _that state alchemist_ , his people were reminding him now in poisonous tones. An old woman urged him to throw a stone because she was too weak. "They said he would repent for his sins, but now look what he's done." _Look, Aris, the man who killed your family has wounded another, and they're hiding him._

The mother of the wounded boy, a softspoken Dalihan woman, was in the CP tending to her daughter. She didn't say much, not even when she heard what had happened to her son. It was almost like she didn't know how to respond.

So, in her place, the other Ishvalans riled to action.

The crowd roared to life once more as a slight man in a uniform, with his black hair tied back in a neat ponytail, walked out from the CP to stand beside Lt. Colonel Miles. The Ishvalans hissed and shouted, pouring their anger onto him. "Kill him!" Someone shouted, "make him pay!"

By the light of the moon, the alchemist's face seemed to glow silver. He was expressionless, face tranquil like a lake on a still day, unlike the distraught and guilt-ridden faces of his subordinate alchemists. Aris saw Miles reach out to hold the man they called Kimblee back, whispering something in his ear.

"See how they protect him!" One Ishvalan shouted, the entire crowd pushing like an ocean wave against the ring of Amestrian soldiers that now linked arms to hold them back. "See how they don't bring him to justice! The Amestrians will never pay for their crimes! They are not to be trusted!"

It was a catastrophe. It was chaos. Children cried at the sidelines, trying to find their parents amidst the crowd that now seemed to move like an entirely different animal. Aris was being pushed back and forth, and he found he recognized the faces of the people around him but he no longer felt they were familiar.

He craned his neck, trying to find Isle amidst the sea of angry faces. He hoped she wasn't hurt.

"He killed my family!" A female voice shrilled, and a hundred other voices roared in response. "Scar, avum-Ishvala, how can you let him walk free?!" The crowd thundered their collective fury, pelting rocks through the human wall of Amestrian soldiers towards Kimblee. A few hit him- one was even large enough to knock his head to the side and leave a bloody gash on the side of his head. But the man didn't flinch, didn't apologize. By now, the Ishvalans seemed to find their voice. A steady chorus of _kill him, kill him_ resounded through the crowd like a deafening heartbeat.

"It was an accident, please try to understand-" Scar was trying to explain, his red shamla fluttering in the night wind.

"There is nothing to understand!" Someone yelled, "if that _murderer_ hadn't been using alchemy, there wouldn't have been an accident! We don't need alchemy to re-build our land!" More cries of agreement.

Miles was trying to speak, but it was futile. It wasn't even about the boy anymore. For all they knew, little Asir would probably live. The Ishvalans were caught up in their past nightmares, and the man they deemed responsible was right in front of them.

Aris had had enough.

He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, where Amestrian soldiers were trying to hold them back from pummeling Kimblee to death with their bare hands. "My friends!" He shouted, with the voice of a baker ready to sell the day's loaves. "My friends, please listen to me!" Aris hadn't really expected the Ishvalans to listen to him of all people, but his people quieted.

"What is the use of this violence? What will it accomplish? If you stone the state alchemist to death, these other alchemists will have no guidance! Our houses will collapse under our feet! How many of us are craftsmen? Only six. If we exile the alchemists from our land, do you truly believe that we can re-build our country sometime during our lifetime? _Our children's lifetime?_ The true building hasn't even started yet- we cannot just _let go_ of our only chance at reclaiming our promised land!" By the time Aris was done, the people had grown completely silent. All he could hear for a while was the sound of his own labored breathing.

The Amestrians let him through the human barricade. But instead of walking up to stand beside Miles, Scar, and Kimblee, Aris linked arms with the Amestrian soldiers at his sides. "I won't let you become murderers, my friends. It was an accident. Little Asir was playing where he shouldn't be. He wasn't noticed. He touched something he shouldn't have touched. Surely you all know that Ishvalan children are the most michevious children in the world. _It was an accident._ Let go of this talk of killing. Please, don't become the thing you all most despise."

A Gunjan man, a giant moving mountain, unsheathed a scimitar. "Stand aside, baker. Our promised land will be given to us by Ishvala, not by Amestrians."

The line of Amestrian soldiers shifted and parted, and Aris was shocked to see Kimblee walk forward towards the armed Gunjan. The crowd, despite itself, together took two steps back.

"W-what are you doing?" The Gunjan stammered, waving the scimitar around in a slashing motion as Kimblee neared him.

Scar's hand reached forward and plucked Aris back from the line of Amestrians, which was now starting to grow increasingly anxious. "You did well," Scar told Aris with a great sadness in his eyes, "but it's out of your hands now. Stay back."

"You've all heard what your _avum-Ishvala_ told you," Kimblee spoke to the crowd, unfazed by their murderous intent. "It was an accident, I assure you." He looked to his subordinates, still prostrated on the ground and quaking from fear. Kimblee faced the Ishvalans again, resolution in the set of his jaw. "It was a dormant mine that injured the boy, but I will take responsibility for what happened today, if it pleases you." He started to unbutton and shrug off his tunic, until he was standing only in his white undershirt. Kimblee beckoned the Gunjan fighter closer. "You. You were a member of the resistance, weren't you? I admire a man who sticks to his resolve. But here, if you're going to kill me, you won't do it slashing your blade around like that. You'll just make a right mess and you won't get the job done."

"What the fuck is he doing?" Aris heard Miles mutter, panic rising on his breath. "The bastard's going to get himself killed."

The Crimson Lotus craned his head to one side and pointed at two areas at the side of his neck. "Carotid, jugular. Put your blade here and slice towards inwards and towards you, but duck your head or else you'll get squirted all over. I'll be dead in a matter of seconds. Or, maybe you're a man who likes it slow?" He grinned. "Tell me what your people want. A torture device? A pit of spikes? I'll make one for you, right here, right now- whatever you want. Or maybe you want me to poetically blow myself up?"

The Gunjan fighter was stunned, his scimitar shaking in his hand. "A-are you saying you're ready to _die_ , alchemist?"

"Why not?" Kimblee shrugged, smiling. "Everyone has to die eventually. All that matters is a good death or a bad death. I don't want to die from old age, withered away in my sleep. So if you want me to die, give me an _exciting death_."

"B-but…"

"But _what_?" Crimson frowned, annoyed. "That boy Asir made a choice to play where he knew he shouldn't go. It's a shame he was injured. And now all of you," he gestured towards the crowd, which was now staring at him with a variable mix of fear and confusion. "Now all of you are calling out for my death. _Kill him, kill him,_ I heard. You made your choice. So now I say- _okay_. Let's see what you've got, then!"

The fighter was silent. He lowered his sword, unable to face Kimblee.

"See," the alchemist shook his head, disappointed. "You speak of killing but you're not ready to get your hands dirty. So why waste your breath? What's your name?"

"Mansoor," the fighter told him, "and I have killed many Amestrians in the days of the rebellion. I was known as the Butcher that Rides, and I don't need to take advice from men like you. I hesitate to kill you not because I'm afraid to, but because there is someone else who wants your blood more than I."

"I see." Kimblee nodded politely. "Then please, pass your blade over to this more deserving warrior."

For a few moments, the crowd was still. Then, a woman in a shawl came winding through the sea of people. When she came to stand at the fighter's side, she lowered the cloth from her head. Gasps erupted from the Ishvalans.

She took the scimitar from Mansoor. Without hesitation, she struck the side of alchemist's left knee. In a split second, Kimblee lost his balance and fell over like a puppet with its strings cut, wincing as he went down. He collapsed in an unceremonious heap on the ground, twitching involuntarily while his leg gushed blood where its ligaments were cut. Some in the crowd screamed.

Miles lurched, hollering, "that's enough!"

Two Amestrian soldiers rushed forward to try to drag Kimblee back and away from the armed woman. She saw them coming and stabbed the scimitar down into the back of Kimblee's left hand, straight through the moon sigil, pinning it to the ground. Crimson Lotus howled.

"He said he wanted an exciting death," she snarled, pulling the bloodied blade back out and raising it to the sky. The moonlight made it glow black. "I won't give him the pleasure."

"Kaysi." Aris' lips formed the name before his brain could come around. The woman whirled around and stared at him, her eyes wide. By the darkness, her slightly darkened hair waved around her, framing her freckled face like a mane.

Recognition settled slowly on her face. "Aris?"

Another woman, cloaked in black, emerged from the crowd. "Kaysi," she cried out, and Aris recognized the familiar voice as that belonging to the Witch of Dasht, the woman he almost regarded as his own mother.

" _Uma?"_ For her, the world seemed to finally fall back into three dimensions and she dropped the scimitar. Suddenly, the killer in her fled and was replaced by a young woman utterly unhinged by the sight of her long-lost mother. She ran into the arms of the witch, her strong voice cracking. "Uma, I thought you were dead. Oh, oh God."

The Ishvalans stirred, some who recognized her reeling back while others tried to understand what was going on. The unorthodox reunion was abruptly cut short by the shrill scream of a little girl, running out from the CP and pushing aside Miles and Dr. Marcoh.

"Kimlee!" She shrieked, utter terror ringing in her voice. Rina fell over on top of the alchemist, shaking him with her little hands. "Kimlee! Kimlee!" With her eyes shining, she screamed into the gathered Ishvalans, "he saved Asir's life! Why would you do this to Kimlee, you bad people!"

It was the death of a child that started the war. It was the injury of a child that started this riot, and it was the cries of a child that ended it.

All at once, the Ishvalans turned against their previous convictions. Rina was right, and they knew it. Watching the state alchemist actually bleeding out on the ground, doubled over in pain, they suddenly found that they hadn't wanted blood after all. Seeing a young woman being reunited with her mother, whom she thought was dead, even if many of them didn't know the two personally, humbled them. Their lost loved ones were already dead. They'd had years to make peace with what they'd lost. Hurting Kimblee wouldn't bring anything back. They'd really only wanted to hear that the Amestrians were willing to properly take their share of responsibility for what happened, accident or not.

"No, no, no," they were saying now, the hatred in their voices completely replaced by concern, "by Ishvala, someone please help him up."

* * *

 **Garrenburg, Amestris. 1890.**

She arrived home from the market to find her husband hunched over their dinner table, the day's paper clutched in his hands. His knuckles had turned white from how hard he was holding the flimsy newspaper, and she set down her basket. Carrots, beets, a cut of stewing beef, and a bushel of rosemary; the aroma of roast beef had always been the smell of home. She drew back the chair next to her husband and sat down carefully, cradling her huge belly as she lowered herself.

"What is it?"

"There's… a lot of conflict in Ishval," said her husband, fingering the corner of the current page anxiously. She gave the page a cursory scan and read 'RESISTANCE IN DESERT SPURRED BY RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM'. "I absolutely despise how they're writing about this, Suzanne. Look at this…" he fingered a block of text and she had to squint to read it. "Look how they make such generalized sweeps of what's going on out there. The people of Amestris don't know anything about Ishval, because they're all getting force fed this bullshit!" He threw the paper down and stood up so quickly that his chair scraped across the floor.

"Conrad," Suzanne whispered, "this will all pass. Nothing will happen here." She meant to be reassuring, but her voice was wavering. Suddenly she was very afraid. "Conrad," she said again, "how was your day at the office?"

Her husband said nothing, and only closed his eyes- red, like those of his father before him. "They won't listen to me any more," he told her. "The Amestrians think of Ishvalans as dangerous and untrustworthy. Ever since the annexation, ever since they forced Ishvalans into bordered provinces, everything has gone down the shitter. They think we are 'religious extremists', whatever that means. The reason for conflict in Ishval isn't religion, nor is it driven by religion. It's driven by the people's thirst for freedom. Why can't they understand that?"

"Because that would make it too obvious that we're the bad people," Suzanne answered, and watched her husband whither in front of her. She felt her baby kick, and she blinked back tears. When she married Conrad and became Mrs. Miles, she never thought that life would become so difficult. She never thought that she'd have to go to the market alone because her husband would not be welcome. She never thought that she'd be the victim of vicious rumors at the doctor's office she worked at because she married an Ishvalan. Most of all, she never thought that all of this could happen in the span of three years. Just four years ago, Conrad was a bright young lawyer climbing up the corporate ladder, and now he was barely holding onto his job.

"Conrad, I'm scared." Suddenly she noticed that the table was chipped in some places, that their wooden floors were in desperate need of a good coat of wax, that their wall was peeling in some areas and that one of their windows didn't close properly.

Her husband bent down to his knees and pressed his forehead to her belly, and then rose to kiss her lips. "They can't touch us here," he promised her, despair wracking his voice. "Even if I lose my job, I'll find something else. I won't let this stop me from being the husband you deserve and the father Connor needs. I won't give up."

"Okay." She grasped his hands in hers, and noticed how chafed his fingers felt. It hurt her heart to think that he had to resort to manual labor to earn the money she'd just spent on that piece of beef. Conrad, who was educated in Amestris' best universities, was being forced to chop wood to feed his family. "Then I won't give up either. I'll stand by you until the very end."

"I don't deserve you," Conrad told her, his eyes gleaming and wet.

"We should fix the window," she said in return, smiling and tucking a strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear. "A storm is coming."

* * *

 **Hollfeld, Amestris. 1901.**

The sound scratched her and left a wound. Outside, the sun was setting, red and bloody. The open window brought in the scent of July flowers, and the humid smell of soil so rich it almost seemed to be rotting. A small robin hopped onto the windowsill. At the sound of Van Ruijven's laughter, the bird was startled into taking flight. She put down her pen, staring in disbelief. "They shot a child in the street today, and you're laughing."

"Lighten up, Estelle," said her husband, sitting himself down on a couch and reclining. "Don't forget that it's the season for strawberries."

"Strawberries?" She frowned, exasperated. "It makes me sick to think about what's happening over there. And here we live our civilized lives as if we don't give a damn."

"I sold two paintings today," he said, like he hadn't heard her at all. "They were very good, and they went to good collectors. One promised me that…"

Estelle sighed and turned away, accustomed to the feeling of being unheard and ignored. It was why she was such a prolific writer; the paper couldn't say _no_ to her words. The ink couldn't argue with her. The alphabet lived to express her ideas, and it couldn't judge her and tell her that her opinion was worthless.

They had beautiful polished marble floors, satin curtains, a crackling fireplace, and sheepskin rugs... but the house still didn't feel like home. Everything was so neatly arranged to tell a story that couldn't be further from the truth. From the outside, Ruijven and Estelle made the perfect couple: an art connoisseur and a poet- how quaint!

When her boy returned from school, she spread her arms and he dove into them. Always, he kissed her cheek before he kissed his father's. Zolf was her hope, the light that kept her from running screaming into the dark.

"Come here, son," Ruijven motioned to the space next to him on the couch, and Zolf reluctantly pulled away from his mother. Very carefully, he sat next to his father and said nothing. Estelle looked into her son's nervous blue eyes and felt a part of her die, little by little. "This is what happens when you resist change," the man told his son, "this is what faith gets you. Those barbarian Ishvalans say that God is on their side, and look! This 'God' is a fiction. Do you understand what I mean by that?"

Zolf nodded his little head, and Estelle knew that he didn't understand but he nodded just so his father could stop talking. On this day he was not so lucky.

Ruijven continued, "this fictional 'God' gives consolation, but what good is consolation? It's like a drug. It keeps you dreaming so you aren't aware of what is actually happening- you think the world is one way when it is another. You are hallucinating, delusional. We should have no sympathy for these madmen; they got what was coming to them."

"That's enough," Estelle cut in, "don't listen to him, Zolf."

"Shut your mouth," Ruijven snarled, "I'll say what I want and he will listen. He's my son."

"He's my son too," she countered, "and here is what I will say as a mother. Zolf," she sought her son's eyes and held his gaze. A part of her rejoiced that he looked at her differently, with the fondness that he never showed to his father. "Anyone who tells you what to believe is your enemy. Anyone who says that he knows the truth knows nothing. There is no belief, only the search for truth and the experience of the truth. That is the purpose of life, the joy."

"What the fuck are you on about-" Ruijven came to his feet.

"How can you hope to know the pain in another person's heart? Don't you see? What kind of human being are you if you have no compassion in your heart? And how dare you tell Zolf that-"

She was knocked back, stumbling and reeling from the force of his fist.

"No!" Zolf shouted, leaping off the couch and tackling his father from behind, trying to pull back his arm with all his might… But he was merely a child, and he wasn't strong enough. "Stop, papa! Why do you always do this?"

"Because she's making you _soft!_ And if you're soft, you won't surive in this world. Let me make this clear- man has the right to shout," said his father, "and I am shouting. One day you too will know what it is like to shout."

"I will never be like you," Zolf, knowing that holding him back was useless, let go of Ruijven and instead clung to his mother. Estelle was bleeding from the mouth, and catching thin rivulets of blood in the palm of her hand. She never cried, not once.

It was the season for strawberries, yes, but in Ishval a little girl was shot in the head. Estelle chose this life; that child had no choice. What right did she have to feel sorry for herself? But when she looked at her son, still so wide-eyed and innocent, the urge to cry became so strong she could barely stand it.

Zolf had no choice, either.

* * *

 **Kanda, Ishval. 1907.**

Elias was pacing back and forth while the madness raged on outside. "The world's gone to hell," he grumbled, wringing his hands helplessly. "Ishvalans are killing each other, and your brother won't even pray with us. He's holed up in his room doing Ishvala knows what… is he my son or is he a stranger?"

Buramos had to force himself to sit, wishing to respect his mother's wishes of keeping him safe but also desperately wanting to see what was happening. The civil war had reached a fevered pitch. From the North, the Gunjans were staving off the Amestrians, but at a massive cost. Earlier in the year, in spring, when the skies were clear and blue icecaps could be seen on the peaks of moiuntains, when the yellow tulips drew along white poppies, the Gunjans kidnapped and murdered two Amestrian officers.

In retaliation, the Amestrians flew endless air raids over Kanda. For weeks and months, children were born and died in the sheltered basements of buildings that acted as makeshift bomb bunkers. The moments of normal life and moments of sheer panic swung ceaselessly during the day like a pendulum, and the people were starting to break. In their devastation and grief at being unable to fight back against the Amestrians that rained fire on them from above, the Kandans blamed the Gunjans.

The roads destroyed by bombing meant that food and fuel were trickling into Kanda at a snail's pace. Both necessities had long soared beyond what was affordable by the average family, and winter was rapidly closing in on the provine.

By the time the first gunshot sounded, Buramos darted out of his home and left his parents' shouts behind. By the time he reached the town square, there had been fifteen shots in total.

Fifteen innocent Ishvalan citizens of Gunjan background were shot and killed by the Kandan civilians. When he arrived, he saw that they were men and women and children, and all of them were familiar faces. The anger and horror was incomparable, but Buramos had to hide it. As a priest, he had to fight to remain a source of comfort for people, a source of consolation.

"Don't come any closer," a bearded Ishvalan in a khaki uniform barred Buramos from approaching with his arm. But Buramos was a warrior monk, and it was his duty to offer last rites to those who died. "I am a priest," he told the man, who only scoffed and pointed a pistol to Buramos' forehead.

The priest swallowed hard and took a step back, all the lawlessness and the terrible inhumanity of the province crystallizing into one condensed moment of terror. It made him hurt to know that Kanda had fallen so far, that they community had deteriorated to such an extent that a priest was not even able to administer for the dead. He wondered what his use was anymore- it seemed that God had abandoned them, so why would his people look to him?

When he returned to his home, he deflected his parents' scolding and ducked into his brother's room. "Evram," he pleaded, "please, please stop."

Evram spun around in his chair; his silver hair dishreveled and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. "Stop and do what? Mother and father want us to pick up everything and run to the countryside. Are you willing to leave these people? To leave this province to the dogs?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying! I just… we just need you with us, Evram!"

"I _am_ with you," Evram countered, throwing his hands up. His fingers were stained with ink. "I am trying to save us, don't you understand?"

"Alchemy is destroying us!"

"Alchemy isn't evil!"

" _It's destroying us!"_

"Science is neutral! It simply gives power, Buramos. The Amestrians are using alchemy for destruction, but you can't forget that alchemy isn't to blame. What kind of logic is that? Are the Gunjans to blame for the Amestrian air raids?"

"Don't you _dare_ make that comparison."

"It's a valid comparison."

"You didn't see their faces!"

"I- I'm tired, brother." All the fight diffused from Evram's body, and his shoulders slumped. He removed his glasses and wiped them with the edge of his shirt, but that only made the lens dirtier than before. "One day, you'll see. Soon." With that, he turned back towards the jumbled piles of papers scattered over his desk, and entered into his own world again.

Buramos could hear his mother in hysterics outside, and his father desperately trying to assure her that things were fine. He heard a familiar roaring sound from above, growing to a scream that made the ground shake. This was followed by a deep, rolling explosion somewhere in the north, and somehow he knew in his heart that more lives had just been extinguished, blown out all at once like a household turning off their lights at night. His mother was screaming on the other side of the door, and his father was praying so quickly that the words strung together into an incomprehensible slur. Even Evram was shaking, forcing himself to not cower or hide under a table but to keep working through the fear.

When he decided to become a priest, he hadn't thought that things would be like this. Now his concerns were no longer youth delinquents and social rights, but rather maimed orphans and mass starvation. It seemed like the world was coming to an end, and there wasn't anything he could do.

Buramos sat on the floor of his brother's study and sobbed, but no tears came because Kanda was also in the middle of a drought and they were all so, so thirsty.

* * *

 _End Chapter 7_

* * *

The effects of war are not completed once the enemy withdraws; indeed, in the case of modern warfare, mines and UXOs remain to maim and kill for generations to come. Some strings are finally getting tied now; I hope you guys are as excited as I am! :)

I decided, on a whim, to write some of the scenes from the past... snapshots in the lives of Miles' parents, Kimblee's family, and Scar's family regarding how their lives were touched to various extents by the Ishvalan civil war.

Reviews are appreciated! I love hearing back from readers. Thank you for reading! C:


	8. Chapter 8

**Miles**

When Miles entered the field hospital, Kimblee turned his head from his place on the cot where Marcoh was treating him. "This is bad," the doctor told Miles. "The ligament joining his left femur to the tibia at the knee joint, the lateral collateral ligament, is completely severed and would require surgery to have it reattached." Dr. Knox didn't say anything, and sat fiddling with a suitcase containing vials and small bottles of liquids- probably anesthetics. Kimblee's hand was in visibly worse shape, since the scimitar had a rather wide edge. It was extremely difficult to staunch the bleeding using only huge rolls of gauze since Kimblee flat out refused to have quick clot poured on it. The chemical action would burn the rest of his palm, damaging his tattoo beyond repair.

Bundles of bloodied gauze and rags littered the ground, and Miles honestly didn't understand how Kimblee was still conscious. Sweat now beaded on his forehead, and he looked positively _sickly_.

But Miles didn't come here to shower pity on him.

"How did you know?" He asked the Crimson Lotus, pulling up a chair and seating himself down at Kimblee's bedside. How many times has it been now that he'd found himself at the alchemist's side with the man recovering from some kind of injury or medical procedure? _Three._ A little smile tugged at Miles' lips.

"How did I know what?" Kimblee asked, before wincing when the doctor poured a bit of alcohol onto his palm. The gash spewed blood anew each time it was washed away.

"How did you know that man wouldn't kill you?" Miles was nearly beside himself when he saw Kimblee approach that giant of a man. He thought the Mad Bomber had finally gone fully insane.

"He didn't have the will to do it. I saw it in his face."

"…You can't have known that."

"I know things."

"But the woman…" Miles craned his head to look behind him, where the tent opened into the rest of the camp. While there were usually Ishvalans out and about at this time of night, this night most retreated to the day tent to have a talk amongst them about what had just occurred. Aris led the way with Scar, Juriv, and… _that woman_ at his side. Now Miles remembered her. He remembered showing her and that big man to their tent, and he recalled the way she laid her hand so softly on his face… that same soft hand that stabbed a scimitar right through Kimblee's.

Madness flickered over the state alchemist's face. "She was something else, Miles. I didn't know with her. I think she actually would have killed me. " He closed his eyes, and for a moment Miles feared he'd lost consciousness. Then his black eyelashes parted again to reveal a set of piercing blue orbs. "Ah, such a strong will, Miles, with no regard to what others thought of her. You know how rare such a soul is?"

"I know," Miles murmured, "I know a woman with such a soul in Briggs."

Kimblee studied his face in silence, and then said very softly, "you should marry her."

Miles was left gaping. "…What?"

"My mother once told me this," Crimson Lotus told him, reciprocating Miles' intimate confession with one of his own. "She told me that when you find such a soul at your door, marry it immediately. Life has no truer or more precious gift. You think every river leads to the sea, but you'll never find it again." Kimblee's eyes started to drift closed, the morphine Dr. Marcoh had steadily been pumping into him slowly taking effect.

"Why did your mother say that?" Miles asked, wanting to take advantage of this rare opportunity of hearing Kimblee actually open up a bit. He hated to admit it, but he was intensely curious.

But the other man was already drifting off to sleep. Marcoh was pulling on his gloves and sanitizing the open flesh of Kimblee's knee with a brown alcohol solution. Dr. Knox laid a hand on his shoulder. "You should go, unless you have a very strong stomach." The night was a hot one, and insects were chirping outside. The lighting fixture that lit up the doctors' workspace cast a sickly looking yellow light on everything.

Miles took another look at Kimblee, who now looked to be fully asleep. "Alright," he relented, a little disappointed. He got up, collected his things, and turned to leave when suddenly the alchemist gave a startled gasp, scaring even Knox, who jolted back in his chair and flailed to catch his scalpel.

"Good God," Marcoh swore, grappling at another vial of morphine. "How much anesthesia does this guy need? Is he even human?" The doctor administered a stronger dose of anesthetics this time, praying that it was enough to knock Kimblee out fully without accidentally killing him.

Before he lost consciousness a second time, Kimblee searched out Miles with a set of bloodshot eyes. "Aeruguo," he rasped out.

And then the bastard fell asleep, leaving Miles confused. "Did he say Aeruguo?" he asked Marcoh, who was pulling on a pair of surgical gloves.

"I suppose," the doctor replied, shrugging his broad shoulders.

It was late now, but Miles stayed a little to test how strong his stomach was. Marcoh had started now on the surgery, using little pins to peel back the skin of Kimblee's knee and fully expose the wound.

So Miles' stomach was not all that strong after all.

He ducked out of the tent and was met with the sight of Rina's mother, a slight woman in a patched white skirt. She covered her hair with the long, soft scarf of the Dalihan peoples, called a _toriyeh_. Both women and men wore this, though the men's toriyeh were checkered and the women's boasted more differentiated patterns. The Gunjans wore a coarser, square scarf over their mouths called a _kuffiyeh_ , mainly used to block the sand and dust in the deserts. In the camp, most tied it on their arm or wore it around their neck. The Kandans boasted their own regional attire: a sash-like cloth called a _shamla_ , in different colors and designs in accordance to role. Most citizens wore a brown shamla over their clothes, and children began wearing it once they grew to adulthood at age fifteen. Community leaders, like Scar and Juriv, were allowed to wear a red shamla.

Absently, Miles wondered how he would look in full Ishvalan garb. Would he wear the toriyeh, kuffiyeh, or shamla? He wondered which his grandfather would have worn. From what Scar told him all those months ago in the bar, Miles deduced his grandfather probably would have been a Gunjan. He wondered, then, why he left everything behind to start anew in Amestris? Why not join a different clan?

Rina's mother bowed deep to Miles, clutching her scarf to her head to keep it from slipping. Miles only saw her briefly today while Scar explained privately to her what had happened, and then she ducked into the CP to be reunited with her daughter. Then the riots started.

"I thank you for bringing my daughter back," the woman spoke in heavily accented Amestrian. Miles was starting to be able to tell the difference in the regional speech among the Kandans, Gunjans, and Dalihans.

"It was my duty…" Miles hesitated, wondering how he should address her. Ma'am? Madam?

"They call me Thu," the woman said simply. With the remnants of pale yellow light from Marcoh's tent, Miles could make out that Thu had the face of a desert woman. While the women that managed to seek refuge in Amestris or Drachma had slightly plumper figures and relatively full cheeks, the women refugees of Xerxes and other wandering desert tribes had eyes pinched at the corners. Even if they were young, creases tended to form around their mouths. Life in the desert aged people too fast.

 _Thu_ simply meant 'weed' in Ishvalan, and Miles wondered why the woman was known by this name. Over time he'd gotten used to people introducing themselves to him with 'they call me', and accepted it as an aspect of the Ishvalans' extremely collectivist culture. "I see," he said simply, "please tell me if there's anything else I can do for you, Thu."

Thu seemed to shrivel in front of him, embarrassed that Miles was acting so politely towards her. Dalihan men weren't known to be overly courteous to their women, but Miles wasn't going to sacrifice on his personal principles. "I- if you hear of my son, e-even if it's bad news…"

"I'll send for you immediately, Thu."

"Thank you." She breathed a sigh.

There was something that had been bothering Miles for the past few hours, ever since he saw Rina come running out of Marcoh's car. He figured that now, with Rina probably in bed and Thu alone and trusting, he could probe a little for the truth. "Thu, is Rina… part Amestrian?"

She flinched, quickly looking away. She picked at her fingers, a million thoughts visibly racing through her head. "Yes," she admitted at last, drained by the weight of the confession.

"Were you…" damn it, Miles wasn't good at handling sensitive topics like this.

But Thu cut in before he could get the word out, her red eyes suddenly focusing. "No. No, I wasn't."

"You can trust me," he chased gently, unconvinced that she was telling the truth. "I can bring him to justice, if you tell me who he is. I won't tell anyone."

The gentle Dalian woman folded in on herself, sinking to a kneeling position and burying her face in her hands. Her scarf slid from her head, revealing smooth silvery hair plaited all the way down her neck and further. "No one would believe me… But sir, you must hear me and trust me when I tell you that I was not raped. I was not forced. We were going to run away and get married in Maestros. This was before the extermination, you see." She paused in her story and looked up at Miles, silently begging him to understand. "Then… then he told me to run, and… He told me I was going to die if I didn't. That everyone was going to die. I didn't believe him; I wouldn't leave. He kidnapped me and smuggled me to the south, to the ruins of Xerxes, and left me with a month's worth of rations. There was a dry well there, and he just… left me there. I thought I was going to die. I didn't know why he'd done this, why he'd taken me from my family in the middle of the night. Then, in two weeks, I knew. The survivors came seeking refuge, bloodied and war torn and with the worst look in their eyes- like they all wanted to kill themselves. They asked me how I'd already arrived, and they looked like they were going to beat me when I started my story. So… so I told them I was kidnapped and raped, then left here to die."

"I… see." Miles was truly terrible at comforting people, especially women. And what was he to say when they came out with a story like that? It was better that he didn't ask for the father's name. He was relieved that Thu hadn't suffered a rape, but from how it sounded the alienation she faced at the hands of her people was much worse. "Sounds like you had a difficult time, I'm sorry."

"It's enough that you believe me." She smiled in relief, replacing the scarf around her head and tugging it so it covered all of the delicate plaits in her hair. "My daughter Rina has her father's hair, but her twin brother Asir doesn't. Rina was always tormented for looking different, and Asir always defended her. They were an inseparable pair, always together." Sadness settled on her thin lips. "Would you give my thanks to the state alchemist? Rina says she was so afraid, and then that Kimblee man ran in to help them when no one else would. My daughter seems quite taken to him."

"I will."

She drew her shawl around her, shivering. The nights in Ishval were known to get a little cold, but that wouldn't be until a few hours later. When she looked at Miles again, she spoke quietly. "Lt. Colonel, what of your parents? Were they…"

"My grandfather was Ishvalan," Miles explained to her, "he made his home in Amestris. Like my father, I inherited his red eyes, dark skin, and light hair." It was strange to speak of his family history to Thu, but of all people he felt she would understand. She would accept him. What unsettled him was how few details he could offer, how little he actually knew.

"I see." Her eyes crinkled. Miles wondered if this was what the Amestrian soldier saw- no wonder he fell in love with her. Thu would have been a beautiful woman ten years ago. Though she lost her physical youth to the harsh reality of desert life, Thu seemed to hold a natural grace about her… Even now, as she tugged her shawl around herself and prepared to leave. "It's late," she said.

"Let me walk you to your tent," Miles offered, already leading the way like it was just the natural thing to do.

"No, no," she shook her hands in front of her, embarrassed. "That's not proper, sir. I'll be alright. Good night." She bowed her head and turned away.

Miles watched her slender form making her way towards the line of residential tents, and internally pinched himself for being so thoughtless.

 _This isn't Amestris anymore, Connor._

It was about time for another call home, Miles decided. _Yes._

Major General Armstrong's phone number circled like a mantra in Miles' head. But when he dialed the number into the phone that night, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something felt wrong.

The phone rang once, twice, three times.

"Hello?" A tired voice, laced with uncertainty… it was the voice of the woman he loved, yet it felt like he was speaking to a different person entirely.

"Mira?" So he, in return, was uncertain as well.

"Miles."

Miles paused, registering that Olivier had used his last name instead of his first name like she normally did. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes." The response was quick but stunted, like she wanted to say something else but had stopped herself from doing so.

"Mira," Miles lamented, partially annoyed but mostly terrified. "I know something is wrong. What's going on?"

His beloved did not respond for a long time. She took four deep breaths, and that was all it took to turn Miles' mind into a jumbled mess of anxiety. He had to sit down in a nearby seat, suddenly feeling very ill.

"Miles," Mira said again, very slowly but with more conviction, "as you know, my father's health has been failing. He has decided to pass on his assets to me as his heir. However…"

Every time Olivier spoke of her family, it always made Miles feel so insignificant- like an ant under the foot of an elephant. He knew what was coming.

"However… he has been pressuring me to marry."

It suddenly came to Miles that he had not explicitly asked Mira to marry him yet. He had hinted at it, implied at it… but didn't Olivier Mira Armstrong deserve more than a hint? "Mira, I…" Should he ask her now? Was it too late? Oh God, what was going on? The world pulled itself into seven dimensions and Miles started to sweat. "Mira… I hadn't wanted to do it like this, but if I have no choice… Will you-"

"Connor!" The sharpness in her voice halted him, his mouth still opened, the words 'marry me' lingering on his lips. On the other side, he heard quivering breaths. "I- I can't… I can't, Connor. You're all the way in Ishval, and I have a responsibility now, do you understand? I need to uphold the Armstrong name."

"A-are you saying that you…" he faltered. It was too painful to even think about, and Miles was glad that he had his own field office where he could be vulnerable in private. "Are you saying that you've found someone else...?"

"You fucking idiot," came the incredulous response, carried on a laugh. "I can't run the Armstrong house alone, Connor. Once my father passes away, probably within the next year, I'll need you by my side."

"You can run it alone until I come back, Mira," Miles argued, growing increasingly desperate by the second. "I'll return as soon as I can, and-"

"But then you'll have to leave again!"

"I…" That was true. Miles rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his hand, feeling like he was about to lose something precious and not knowing how to stop it from happening. He felt so helpless, connected to the woman he loved with only a telephone cord and some broken words.

"Once my father passes away, I'll have to retire from my post in Briggs to take over his finances and manage the household businesses, attend functions, and everything in between. I don't want to, but it's my duty. My brother just isn't capable. My mother wishes to spend the rest of her days in the countryside, away from the pressures of the public. This is a duty that I must take on, Connor."

"I understand. I want to be by your side, Mira. I… God, I miss you." He cut his heart open and poured out his innermost thoughts, but still he felt like it wasn't enough, like he was just pouring a bucket of water into a vast desert. He felt Mira drawing further from him, and he didn't know how to pull her back… "I want to marry you, Mira."

Oh God, he'd said it. He wanted to hang up out of humiliation. It came out all wrong. Because it wasn't about Miles. It was about Mira, and of course Miles would want to marry her! Every man in Amestris wanted to marry the wealthiest woman in the state! But why would Olivier Mira Armstrong want to marry a lowborn Ishvalan soldier with few assets and not an ounce of aristocratic blood in his veins?

Or were their glory days over? Were they now forced to take stock of their present situations and choose rationally? Was he doomed to be kicked to the curb, replaced by a wealthy aristocrat worthy of the Armstrong family's most brilliant star? Was what they had nothing more than a casual springtime romance, to be remembered and hastily pushed away out of embarrassment in the later married years with their respective life partners? Was this the end? An image of Mira in a fur coat, lacing arms with some blonde tuxedoed aristocrat.

No. Miles could not let this come to be.

Still, Mira had not responded. So Miles spoke to fill the silence, and to prove that he could have a voice. He wasn't just Major General Armstrong's adjutant any more. "Mira, to me you have always been an enigma- I hope you know that. I know what your father and his aristocratic circle thinks of me, and I don't blame them. But don't you remember, in your childhood, when you were playing 'army commander' with your brother and your father ran in telling you to go inside because war was a boy's game? Do you remember telling me about this, Mira?"

A low chuckle. "Yes. That must have been four years ago or more. I can't believe you remembered."

Miles smiled, but the motion made his nose sting and the tears started to push at the lids of his eyes. "Do you remember when you joined the military, Mira? Nobody thought it was a good idea, but you didn't listen. Look at you now- Major General Armstrong! You always did whatever you wanted to do and you chased it with no regrets." He realized that this little monologue had to come to its rational conclusion. "I know I don't have much to offer you, Mira. My family has neither wealth nor much social or political influence. I know that you are the sun and I am merely a candle, but… but I refuse to believe that what we had can be thrown away. You've always made your own decisions, and if you feel that you would be happier with another man, I won't argue. But I will fight for you with my last breath, do you understand? I would stand by you no matter what, regardless of what happens. This is your decision to make, Mira, not your father or your mother's. "

Again, Mira was quiet. Finally, she took a long, shaky breath. "I'm sorry, Connor. Things have been hard here. I don't know what to think any more. Maybe I'm too tired. You're right. This is my decision, as hard as it is. I do love you, Connor. But it's just… so difficult. People think I'm cold and unreachable, but that's not true. You know, don't you? You say you're a candle but you managed to melt the Northern Wall of Briggs. What about that! I miss you, Connor."

Mira laughed, and the sound was a breath of spring. "Do you remember when you were about to release from the military, Connor? This was… what, ten years ago? A little more? Yes… It was during the Ishvalan crisis. I convinced you to stay. I wanted to see what you could become, because I wanted you to understand that the limits other people placed on you based on your blood or social status were just that- their limits. Not yours. I saw that you felt like giving up, but I saw that you had a certain light in your eyes. You speak of a candle like it's nothing. One candle can light another, and then another, until the whole world becomes filled with light. That's what I thought about when I looked at you. Just look at what you've become, all thanks to your own effort. I couldn't let you go then… I can't let you go now."

"Mira, are you saying that we'll marry?" It was his dream-of-dreams, and the thought of it finally coming to life made everything around Miles feel… unreal. There was a blue bottleneck fly circling around the lamp on Miles' desk, and he only wanted to embrace it out of sheer joy.

"Yes, Connor. Yes. We can marry… If you want to."

The smile on Miles' face dropped. "Mira, what do you mean?"

"Connor, if you were to marry me, I'll need you by my side to run the family. You'd have to take on the burdens of the aristocracy, and it isn't all peaches and cream like it looks from the outside. I have no doubt you'll find a way to adapt and overcome, but a lot will be expected from you. This means you can't be in Ishval for the next twenty years. Coming back for visits a few times a year won't be enough, Connor. If you want to be my husband, you'll have to make Amestris your home for good."

"That means I'll have to let go of the Restoration."

"...Yes. I didn't want to tell you because I felt so selfish... I know you wanted to give yourself fully to the Restoration. I-"

Miles didn't even hear the rest of Mira's words. His mind was crammed with thoughts of Scar, thoughts of WO Ross wobbling into the mess tent, thoughts of the late nights joking around with Lt Havoc... He considered everything they'd done so far, and couldn't imagine simply picking up and leaving. He couldn't leave Ishval under another Amestrian officer who might not care as much as he did about the land and about its peoples. He couldn't leave Scar here all alone when he'd promised him that they would work side by side until Ishval became a jewel to be envied once more. He had made friends with the peoples here, had felt them touch his life: Aris the baker, Old Man Juriv, the Witch, and of course Thu, Asir, and Rina... He opened the drawer of his desk and saw the small remote that could extinguish Kimblee's life. Kimblee- what a strange person... and to think that Miles now considered him a sort of _friend_ , and cared that he was injured and wanted to see him recover! And what about the woman? The woman that claimed to be the witch's daughter... Kaysi, was it? Yes, Miles remembered the day she arrived. How was he to know she would start such trouble? Should Miles punish her? Surely the Ishvalans must not be allowed to think it was acceptable to attack a state alchemist. There was so much to understand still, and so much to for Miles to decide on.

He couldn't trust anyone else to fill his shoes. He didn't want to take off these shoes to begin with!

And so his life had expanded beyond Briggs and beyond his love for Mira, and he was torn because of it.

"Think about it," said Mira. "Let me know soon... maybe next week."

"Alright," Miles acquiesced reluctantly, knowing that this was Mira's cue to wrap up the call. He didn't want to let her go, even if it were just her voice over the telephone... "I love you."

"I love you too. God, I- I don't know who's proposing to whom now. Isn't that silly?" She laughed a little, sounding embarrassed. "Good night, Connor."

Without even waiting for him to respond, she hung up.

"Good night," Miles said into the dead line.

What was he to do? His dream -Mira's dream, too- was so close. So within reach, but at such a high cost. Should he stay in Ishval and rebuild his grandfather's homeland, or should he leave Ishval and settle down in Amestris with his beloved? There seemed to be a time and effort constraint on both options. He couldn't let Ishval fall behind on their contracted development goals. This required his immediate attention. After Kanda regained its footing, there was still Daliha and Gunja to be attended to. He wanted to see Ishval flourish again. People relied on him here, and for an Ishvalan born in Amestris, this was the pinnacle of his career. Yet he also couldn't give up his dream of marrying Mira. She was the love of his life, and if he lost her he would be lost to the world. If he hesitated too long, she might start doubting that he loved her.

The truth was, he did love Mira, but he'd also come to love Ishval.

 _You think every river leads to the sea, but you'll never find it again._

The question was... what was his _sea_?

* * *

 **Kaysi**

She remembered that she used to belong to the baker's son. Now she wouldn't even entertain the thought. It didn't matter. The arrangement was no more, for it was widely known that promises made in times of peace were null after the desolation of war. Besides, it was also known that women who went to war were forever unfit for marriage.

A long, long time ago, the Witch of Dasht took in the baker's wife when she was going through a particularly hard labor. The baby was breech, and the baker was convinced that the priest's chanting and praying wasn't doing enough. Out of desperation and fear that his wife was going to die from blood loss, the baker carried her whimpering to the witch's doorstep in the death of night.

It took Isle only two hours to deliver the baby girl, and she made the baker's wife magical cakes and brewed her special teas to speed her recovery. Kaysi ran back and forth, fetching hot water, towels, and cooing the baby to sleep when the baker's wife was too tired from breast-feeding. The baker visited daily, bringing them fresh bread of all kinds that Kaysi received gratefully.

"Do you like my bread?" The baker asked her one day. His wife had been with the witch for a week and a half. Kaysi was six years old.

The little girl was a little surprised; the big baker never once spoke to her before. "They're delicious," she admitted sheepishly. Kaysi was secretly sad that the baker's wife would leave them soon. It meant they'd stop getting daily visits from the baker and his deliveries of bread. Kaysi and her mother would never be able to afford bread like this. Before long, they'd start going hungry again.

The baker nodded. Though kind and thoughtful, he came across as a severe and joyless man. "You're a very pretty girl. My son would like you."

Kaysi hadn't understood then, but she did see her mother suddenly turn from where she was brewing a pot of tea. She and the baker looked at each other, and then she nodded. "Kaysi is very lovely."

"Your daughter should have bread for the rest of her days," said the baker.

And that was that.

At eight, she hadn't really understood what it meant to be betrothed. She only knew that her mother was very happy, and she knew that for some reason the baker's son started to deliver them a basket of bread at night. It was bread that the baker couldn't sell during the day, but it was still more than they'd ever had before.

As a child, she liked to play at swords and daggers with the raiders' sons in the streets, and she liked to steal for fun. When she grew breasts, all she needed to do was to shrug on a shamla and a scarf. She continued to spend her time with the most mischevious boys of Kanda, stealing pomegranates and hiding in rooftop gardens. When the ibex herds gathered during their long journeys across the desert in search of pasture, Kaysi fell in with the hunters and their sons. Isle was adamantly against it, but she could do nothing but sew pouches of ground snakeskin into the seams of Kaysi's shirts and hope for her daughter to return.

Kaysi argued often with her mother once she got older. She loved Evram. She didn't love the baker's son, who grew into a clumsy oaf of a man with big hands and pimples all over his face.

Her first bleeding signaled the end of her freedom as a child and the beginnings of a long and scripted life as a Kandan woman. Isle refused to let her go out, and Kaysi attempted escape numerous times- she missed her friends, she missed the busy market stalls, she missed the open skies and the lazy days of not having chores to do and duties to learn.

How did she end up so inferior? There was nothing in the world so unequal as men and women. Sometimes she could not sleep at night, wondering if she were better off dead. Women had almost no freedom in domestic affairs. They could hold no property. Even her beautiful mother, who was skilled and intelligent beyond measure, could only rise as far as her husband allowed it. And, when he fancied, he threw her away.

She was very depressed for some years. More than anything, she wanted to be a free person.

By the time she became teenager, she'd met a curious young man called Evram and fell in love. She didn't know very much about him, but he seemed to know everything about her. He was well travelled, and wooed her with distant stories of faraway lands where men and women educated themselves in universities and competed against each other. He told her that men in Aueruguo stood up on the bus when a woman got on, and willingly gave up their seats. He told her that in Amestris, men respected women like their superiors. In these countries, the spirit of independence burned like fire- women fought for their rights, joined armies, and fiercely educated themselves. Kaysi was utterly overtaken by these tales, and Evram's eagerness to speak to her and treat her as an equal.

She used to wait for him in the winding side streets outside of his home, tucked out of sight so his family wouldn't see her. So they wouldn't see that their firstborn son was meeting in secret with the Witch's daughter.

Evram came from a prestigious clan known for raising very pious and noble men- both formidable warriors and illustrious scribes. Most of all, the men and women of his tribe were known to push the boundaries of accepted knowledge. It came as no surprise when his interest in the forbidden arts eventually led him to the Witch of Dasht.

Kaysi's mother resolutely refused to teach Evram anything, even forbidding him from entering the dilapidated hut she called her home. He offered her payment in gold, in services, in food, but nothing would do.

Yet Evram was a determined man.

Kaysi would walk by him when she returned in the evenings from Ishvala knew where. He often prostrated outside the Witch's house and waited until she acknowledged him, making himself a laughingstock of the slums. _Look at Gilad's son,_ the street urchins would say, _look how the noble priest's son begs at the witch's feet. No wonder he's a shame to the family._

But Isle never paid him mind. She stepped over him when she went on her errands. She instructed Kaysi to push him aside if he was in her way.

Evram never gave up. Not even when Kaysi emptied a bucket of wastewater on him, not even when Isle walked over his fingers.

Kaysi knew her mother had her fears.

Above all, the Witch of Dasht feared losing her daughter. She saw how Kaysi hesitated around Evram, saw the way she offered him bits of leftover bread when he looked hungry. She saw how Evram looked at Kaysi, saw how his eyes and body hungered for the secret of her wild half. She knew.

Kaysi knew it too, but she was powerless to control herself. They always said she was part beast. So, like an animal, she fell to her instincts.

Isle forbade her from seeing him, so Kaysi would sneak out at night like a black panther. She'd wait, crouched outside under his window until he parted the wooden windows and let her in.

She didn't know anything about alchemy, but he taught her something else instead.

Even though Kaysi was very good at covering her tracks, she always feared her mother would find out. The Witch would be sleeping in her rocker upon her return, or up late delivering a baby. She never asked where Kaysi went, which made the young girl fear that her mother _already knew_.

They hid their romance for almost a year before the tensions in Kamda imposed by the civil war reached a boiling point.

Kaysi left to join the Gunjan fighters. If the women in Amestris could join the army and rain down bombs on Ishval, then Kaysi could also become a fighter. She could fight back. She left her mother behind, she left Aris grappling in the dust, and she left her lover to his books. She loved her mother and she did care for Aris and she was infatuated with Evram, but in the end her greatest loyalty was to her own heart. Like the buntings and brilliant glossy ibis that knew to migrate when the winds changed, Kaysi left them all behind.

But, like those same homesick birds, her internal compass led her back.

Aris looked so different now. She wondered if he still remembered her, and couldn't believe she was looking at the same man. As she walked, her mother held her hand tight, squeezing occasionally as if to reassure her that she was _real_. Kaysi squeezed back, needing some reassurance herself.

She and her mother stole away into their own tent. Kaysi thought she saw Aris' face turn their way, his mouth opening as if to stop them. If he said anything, the two women didn't hear. They had much to talk about, much to remember, and much to understand. Ever since Kaysi was a child, ever since she came to that savage realization of womenhood, she knew that women were secretive creatures. She might be a lion at heart, but she was still a daughter. And there were things that passed only between a daughter and her mother.

Kaysi was ushered into the witch's personal tent, where wooden cases of herbs and strange powders cluttered around her sleeping cushions. Bushels of drying herbs hung from rope dangled from the tent's center beam. There was barely enough room to sleep, and just enough space for the two women to sit cross legged on the rug facing each other. Isle flicked on the light fixture and Kaysi truly saw her mother's face again for the first time in ten years.

She choked. Over the years she'd formed an imagined face of her mother, whom she thought was dead. She didn't dare to think of it often for the overwhelming guilt. But now her mother's face was a shining light, and it was more beautiful than anything Kaysi had seen for a long time. Slight pockets of flesh had formed beneath her crow-footed eyes, which were still lined with dark blue charcoal just like Kaysi always remembered. Her mother still wore her hair in a thick braid down her back, plain and unadorned. She still smelled of sandalwood.

When she peeled back her mother's hands from hers, Kaysi could see that Isle's palms were still soft and white, with long and elegant nails. Meanwhile, her own fingers were calloused at the pads from years of warring and a series of burns.

"I thought you were dead," Kaysi blurted at the same time as Isle said, "I knew you were alive."

* * *

 **Dr. Knox**

He wasn't completely thrilled at having Kimblee for a patient, but Knox was nevertheless glad to be treating the living once more. Under the stony exterior he showed the rest of the world, he melted to see Lan Fan recover from her injury. Even after all the disillusionment of his cruel career, Knox had the audacity to feel a sliver of hope.

His arrival to Ishval had to be delayed since he decided to attend his son's graduation from Amestris' top medical academy. The feeling was bittersweet; of course Knox was quietly proud of his son for his achievements and hard work, but he couldn't help but think of the flip side of a doctor's obligation. Before he left Amestris, he made sure his son understood all the things he did. Those were things he never told anyone- shameful things that not even his former wife knew. The look on his son's face was enough to satisfy Robert Knox that Tom Knox would never, _ever_ join the military.

With the surgery completed, the two doctors tossed their gloves and washed their hands in a metal basin of water. It was late, and their subordinate medics snored loudly behind a cloth tent divider. If the two of them had any sense, they'd immediately start taking shifts sleeping so they could be at least partially rested for the next sunrise.

But they were both senseless men, and so they decided to brew a mug of strong coffee and have a conversation.

They used to have conversations like this during their time at residency in the Amestris Central State Hospital. Back in those days, they didn't have moral dilemmas to think about. Those were simpler times in which they only had to worry about trivial things, and what a blessing that was.

He sipped at his coffee, wincing when the scalding hot liquid scorched the roof of his mouth. He was always the more impatient of the two. He wished he had the courage to do what Marcoh did. But, in reality, Knox felt as though he'd lost the _right_ to treat people. These hands that'd killed so many and touched so many corpses… they didn't deserve to treat the living.

"I remember the first time we witnessed an autopsy." Marcoh filled his cup again with the strong brew. "That was, what, in our third year?"

"Yes." Knox sometimes thought back to that day, and would shake his head at how innocent he was then. He even gagged like a normal person. But now…

Kimblee stirred on the cot, the movement catching the attention of both doctors. He didn't wake. The crickets chirping outside drowned out the sound of his shallow breathing.

"I remember watching the pathologist sawed open the skull," Knox said, "leaving those little notches along the way. I remember feeling like I was just… shocked into a very different and upside-down kind of consciousness."

"I remember the look on your face," Marcoh added, "and to think- you decided to specialize in pathology. From the look you had, I'd have never guessed it in a million years."

"Well," Knox demurred, "it was only right to dive into the abyss."

"Do you regret it?"

He thought about it. "It was a difficult job. I got to see more than I wanted; I saw the real material meaning of what it meant to be human… I wish I could still think of people as abstract souls and personalities instead of walking bags of organs, fat, and shit."

"Yet no autopsy is ever the same," Marcoh remarked, trying in his optimistic way to see the light of a dark situation.

"That's true. They're all just varying levels of disgusting."

Every corpse had its own unique smell. But, unlike wine, corpses didn't get much better with time. There was no way to describe the overwhelming, vomit-inducing stench of a five-month old corpse with a rotting bowel cavity filled with decaying feces. Eventually Knox came to miss the smell of _normal_ rotting human flesh. When he started working as Mustang's autopsy specialist, the smell wasn't too bad. Burnt flesh always smelled the same.

He didn't mind those corpses; Mustang's alchemy inflicted fifth and sixth degree burns onto his victims. Knox only needed to take what tissue samples remained from these burnt corpses for study. But those were the easy days, before Central decided that they wanted to take their research _further._ Knox didn't like to speak of it. He was aware of what Marcoh was working on at the time. Knox was just another step in the process.

Before the Ishvalans were killed and used for creating philosopher's stone, they arrived at Knox's facility as test subjects on the human body's ability to withstand pain and burn wounds. Healthy Ishvalans were captured and tortured at the hands of state alchemists. They were burned with fire, chemical powders, acids, and electrified. Kept in horrific conditions to foster infection, they were pumped full of experimental drugs and examined to see how their body responded. Knox had seen terrible things happen to those Ishvalans. The fire killed some immediately. Others succumbed to infection, dying in a pool of their own waste. Some had horrible side effects to experimental drugs, and wailed day and night from the pain. Those who survived, no matter whatever state they were in, were shipped off to Marcoh. Knox was told that many died on the short journey to Marcoh's laboratory.

Those who died from the experiments were brought to Knox, who was ordered to prepare detailed autopsy reports to supplement their research.

Knox explained to his fellow doctor that he felt he couldn't say no. If he refused to do his job, the State would just get another pathologist to replace him. And what if that pathologist wasn't as careful as he was, wasn't as thorough? What if they played around with the corpses as Knox sometimes caught his own subordinates doing? He felt that if there was anything he could do at all, it was to give a respectful examination to the dead. Even though he morally hated what he was forced to do, he felt a strange sense of responsibility to follow through.

He explained that at the end of the day, everything stank of death: the acidic stench of gallbladder bile, the stinging smell of formaldehyde. Knox lamented that he'd tried everything. He poured lemon juice over himself. He tried dousing himself in baby powder. But, even when fully covered with protective gear, at the end of the day Knox found slick subcutaneous fat sticking to his fingers under his gloves. It glazed every surface; every chair, table, cup, pen, and even the faces of his fellow pathologists. Papers and books never lasted long in his facility; their pages became yellow and translucent within days.

Marcoh shook his head in astonishment, his gaze distant. "Sometimes I wonder if we can still be considered human beings. I don't… feel like the same creature as other people. I can't even connect to my own subordinates, those young eager medics. They just… don't understand."

"It's because we've reached another level of consciousness," Knox remarked. "That's the price of looking into the abyss. You come to understand the abyss that is yourself, and what a dark and disgusting thing it is."

Kimblee coughed and turned his head. The doctors realized he'd been awake and listening all this time. Knox glared at him, but didn't admonish him. For some reason, he was glad that someone else could hear his story- someone other than Marcoh.

Kimblee must have been aware of what had transpired; after all, the philosopher's stone Marcoh made was put in his hands. Knox wanted Kimblee to understand the price that was paid for that stone. The stone that took more lives in turn.

The three of them were a sick conspiracy.

The sun was almost coming up. The horizon was a ribbon of gold against a dark blue curtain, dotted with morning stars.

"Good morning, Kimblee." Marcoh stood and stretched, and then moved to Kimblee's side to stick a thermometer into his mouth. The Crimson Lotus murmured something in return, folding his tongue over the thermometer.

Knox's eyelids were feeling heavy now. More than anything, the conversation had exhausted him. He heard what Kimblee had said to Miles before the Lt Colonel left. Knox could remember, somewhat hazily, what Kimblee's mother looked like. While Marcoh preferred to take fishing trips on his days off, Knox frequented art galleries in his younger years. He had the great pleasure to become acquainted with a sharp-tongued man by the name of Van Ruijven.

When he looked at Kimblee now, Knox saw only Van Ruijven's elegant nose and thin lips, Estelle's high cheekbones and her dark hair. Like Kimblee, Van Ruijven was a very educated man, fond of obscure references, puns, and double entendres. Charismatic and wildly knowledgeable, he was a delightful conversational partner... when he wanted to be. Knox saw only a small glimpse of the man's dark side, and felt immense pity to know that Kimblee grew up in that household.

Knox had never personally met Kimblee until arriving in Ishval for the restoration. Even during the Civil War, the Crimson Lotus was just a name on people's mouths. When he heard of Zolf J. Kimblee during the Civil War, he didn't even consider that he was Van Ruijven's son. Knox never even knew that Van Ruijven had a son to begin with; the man never spoke of any children. _Kimblee_ , as it turned out, was Estelle's maiden name. But when he laid eyes on him that first day when Knox arrived… he knew.

Like his father, Kimblee had a hungry look about him. Like Van Ruijven, Kimblee hungered for things he shouldn't have.

* * *

 **Isle**

She used to weep to think that after all the death and destruction, after being abandoned by Ishvala and left to die, that life still went on. Rain still fell. The sun still rose. Even cactuses still flowered.

And now, she wept to know that after everything Kaysi had seen and done, she'd survived and had managed a semi-normal life. Little by little, the missing years between them were filled with hours of meandering tales and sips of a tea long gone cold. Isle told her daughter about her life that had changed surprisingly little; a witch by day or night, in the slums of Ishval or the ghettos of Amestris, her life remained much the same. When women fell pregnant against their will, when men feared unfaithfulness, when babies fought to be born and old men fought not to die, they came to her. Just as it always was. But now she was something of a healer in New Ishval- how about that? No longer did they spit her name like poison.

Then she listened intently as Kaysi explained how she'd run to Drachma with the rest of her rebel warriors. Luckily, she managed to find work at an inn and eventually made her way up from a sweeper to the de-facto innkeeper when the madame left to run errands. Isle wondered how her proud daughter must have been bent low to accept a sweeping job. The Wild Child she knew never bowed to anyone, and would sooner whack you with a broom than use it to sweep the floor. Apparently Kaysi also took up cartography, since travellers passing through the inn paid handsome sums for good area maps.

"That was all I wanted." The witch wiped at her eyes with a long sleeve. "I only wanted you to live a normal life, to give up the fighting. To wear a dress…"

"You wanted to give me away," Kaysi whispered back, a rush of emotion casting a deep flush onto her cheeks. "I was terrified, _uma_. That's why I left… I'm sorry."

Ten years ago, Kaysi would have lowered her eyes out of respect. Now she kept them focused on Isle's face, no doubt a Drachman custom. Her Wild Child had grown from a slight blossom to a woman in full bloom. Her hair had become a shade or so darker, like tea the longer it was steeped. She still had those proud, prominent cheekbones, wide eyes like those of her father, and light freckles peppered over the bridge of her prominent nose. Her lioness had returned.

"I saw them throw you down a well," she insisted, " _uma_ , how are you alive?"

Isle smiled. "You forget that we are daughters of Dasht, and ours was a land of crisscrossing rivers meeting at the great salt sea. I can't be drowned. It took me over a day, but I climbed out."

"You _climbed_ out of the well?" Astonishment, then horror, then shame. "Oh god, _uma_ , I thought- I… I _left you_. I should have saved you, I should have done something. I could have run away with you. I thought you were-"

The witch put on a look of wounded reproach. "I'm mother to a lioness, Kaysi. Do not underestimate me." Isle could tell that Kaysi was about to ask something else, something that she didn't want to answer. The younger woman had that same look on her face now that she did when she was just a child, watching other children boast about their fathers. She quickly changed the subject. "Kimblee wasn't the man that killed Evram, little dove. He might have survived, but he used alchemy to give his arm to his brother."

This surprised her daughter. "He had a brother?"

Equal parts incredulous and utterly furious, Isle could barely form the words. "How could you profess to have loved this man when you didn't even know he had a brother?"

Kaysi's face twisted sheepishly. "He never spoke of a brother." Still, Isle was happy to see an embarrassed flush creeping up her cheeks. Kaysi was starting to realize, almost a decade later, how foolish she had been in her youth. "Is he here…? Evram's brother?"

The witch hesitated, but relented and told Kaysi about the man called Scar. _After all_ , _she thought, what was the worst that could happen?_

"Scar?" She frowned deeply, tapping her fingers on her face in an effort to remember. " _Uskir_? I have seen him around the camp. By Ishvala, to think I did not see the resemblance..."

"His name was Buramos before the war," Kaysi elaborated, "but after the war he took on the nickname and… Kaysi? Are you alright?"

Her daughter, who was never good at hiding her emotions, had a look of astonishment etched on her face. "Buramos," she muttered to herself, "the pomegranate thief!"

"What?" The witch had no idea what Kaysi was on about.

"I see," she mulled, though her energy had completely changed. Now the lion looked distracted, anxious to be somewhere else. "...So he sacrificed his life to save his brother." Kaysi picked up the copper cup and gazed into the dark tea. Bitter, no doubt. "I see." She put it down. "Still, I will never forgive that alchemist for what he did, _uma_. I have many regrets, but what I did to him will not become one of them."

Kaysi was never one to have any regrets, so the implicit confession piqued Isle's interest. There was still so much unclear, so much unknown. Why hadn't Kaysi tried to return? Why did she run to Drachma and not to Xerxes or the ghettos of Amestris like the rest of their people?

Yet she understood that Kaysi was fully a woman now, and women had the right to their own secrets. They spoke more, cried some, and loved plenty. But when the moon came to ride high in the night sky and the temperature dropped to near freezing, the witch allowed the lion to slip from her tent.

All alone again, Isle made some space around her tent and laid herself down. If she closed her eyes, she could go back to those times when she still lived in Old Ishval, in a rotting hut. She'd be in her bed, trying not to worry herself sick while Kaysi was out sulking about under Evram's window.

She knew. She knew from the first day.

Evram came from a good family. He was relatively wealthy. That wasn't the issue. Evram was an _alchemist_ , even if no one in the community would dare to admit it. The day Evram appeared at her door, Isle knew that Kaysi was lost to her.

When she was first exiled from the Chieftan's house, she used Kaysi's blood to perform an act of divination. Letting the droplets fall and spin in her glass scrying bowl, Isle saw that the same force of nature that'd destroyed her life would one day come to claim her daughter.

The witch had been terrified. That night she clutched her young daughter to her breast until the little girl cried and whimpered, struggling to free herself. Isle regretted looking into the future; some things were better off not known. She would live in guilt and fear for the rest of her life. Even before her daughter was born, Isle's mistakes wrote her death in the stars.

The witch knew what it was like to love an alchemist. She knew what it was like to be a living mystery, to be desired by a man who only wanted to unravel her.

Alchemists, in their zeal for understanding, often destroyed everything and anything they professed to love. People couldn't be rebuilt. Families and lives couldn't be re-constructed. To love an alchemist was to embrace self-destruction, to welcome complete devastation as a lover.

When Evram came to their door, it was like watching Death arrive on his skeletal horse to take her daughter away. By Ishvala, she'd wanted to _kill him_. When she looked at Evram, she saw the same spirit of reckless youth in him. Young men like him told themselves hat they could singlehandedly alter what had already been written, that it was them and not Ishvala who plotted their destiny in the stars. A man like that would have brought Kaysi to ruin.

When he kneeled at her feet and begged her to become his master, he asked her things that made her heart tumble in fear. He'd seen what she could do, and he knew that she was no normal sorceress. Evram was not a stupid man; with one look he understood that Isle had some unnatural power that could not have been taught to her by another human being. She knew that if she did nothing, he would eventually uncover the truth.

She couldn't let that happen, and she couldn't let him take Kaysi away from her. Her little girl was all she had.

So when the soldiers came to destroy their district, before one of them threw her into a well, she told them where his family was hiding. If she were going to die, if she drowned, she'd take Evram with her. She'd drag him screaming to the World-to-Come, so he'd never be able to run away with the Lion of Hajra. That was all she could do to protect her daughter, to let go in hope that Kaysi would be spared from her destiny, from meeting the same terrible fate as her mother.

 _God, she was a selfish creature._

Isle turned on top of her cushions, and closed her weary eyes. Some months ago when she saw Buramos again, the man they now called Scar, the resemblance to Evram was shocking. Yet he didn't remember her at all. Scar was always off studying in some master's home or meditating, and he probably never even knew about his brother's secret love affair with the witch's daughter. Isle couldn't stay in that tent; she ducked out to collect herself.

Scar didn't know, Ishvala be blessed, and Isle prayed that Kaysi would never discover that it was her own mother who showed the Crimson Lotus exactly where to find the man she loved.

On nights like this, she wondered if she was a monster… or if this was simply what it was to be a mother.

* * *

 _End chapter 8_

* * *

This chapter has been pretty heavy on the Kaysi + Isle story. I thought about separating it into different chapters, but I needed to get it out so the rest of the story could be properly understood. Miles got the spotlight this time around, but next chapter will feature lots of Kimblee and Scar.

Olivier Mira Armstrong has always been a fascinating character to me. Her appearance in this chapter may appear out-of-character. She's always been uncompromising, determined, and fiercely loyal. This is what she will continue to be. Just wait.

Thanks for reading once again! :) Please leave a review if you enjoyed the chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

Hello friends. I realize it's been a very long time. I'm sorry for the very, very long delay. A lot of things have happened, and I've had to make a lot of changes. Some of you may recall that I work in military logistics. My country opened her arms to the Syrian refugees, and mounted operations to identify them and bring them in to the country. I didn't have much time to write in the beginning, but now things are calming down somewhat.

The refugee crisis has changed the direction of this fic. I'd originally planned for a plot surrounding an unfound philosopher's stone, making alchemy a key point of the story. But now I realize that the people are more important, more interesting, and more deserving of attention. The once proud people of Ishval have been cheated, betrayed, and almost destroyed by a terrible act of genocide. They all have different goals and dreams, and the notion of 'rebuilding Ishval' means something different to different groups of Ishvalans. They should be the focus. I think the shift of increased political focus is not completely out of place, considering Asir' injury was the catalyst that brought the reality of Amestrian administration to the forefront of new Ishvalan consciousness.

I always wanted to focus on the logistics of the restoration, but now I realize that I'd missed something important: the implications, the memories of past betrayal, and the ripple effects on Amestrian society and neighbouring states. People's ability to congregate and effect change are incredible, and conflicts in how different groups approach this have been the basis of history. How these events affected ordinary people are just as important.

* * *

 **Aris**

Aris was the baker's son, yes, but he wasn't simpleminded.

It was why he could often be found with Black, sitting and chatting or eating in companionable silence. Most Ishvalans assumed that Aris, being the kind man that he was, simply felt pity for the old veteran who had only rants and faded memories to keep him company.

On this afternoon of uneasy peace as the Ishvalans recovered from the events of last night, he finally came across Black at the edge of an old wadi, a long walk from camp. The area here was once farmland and hadn't yet been cleared of UXOs, but Aris had lived through the war and walked without hesitation. Like Black, Thu, and Kaysi, those who lived through the war walked like the dead, and they were unafraid to venture outside the camp's perimeter. Black was sitting on a felled tree, surrounded by scraps of garbage and shrapne. There was a fire burning in an old oil drum, and as Aris neared he could see that Black was spooning cupfuls of diesel into it from a rusted bucket. Beside him, Thu drew her scarf closer around her neck.

"What about Scar?" Aris heard Thu ask Black when he came into earshot.

"We can't trust him," Black retorted, banging his metal cup onto the edge of the oil drum to shake out the last drops of diesel. "Didn't you hear how he reacted when I told him about all that we'd lost? He is one of _them_ , he is with the Amestrians."

"He'd just arrived," Thu argued, "he didn't want a riot. The Lieutenant Colonel is a good man. He is not the enemy."

"He is not the enemy," the old bearded man agreed, "but neither is he a friend." Here he waved to Aris, his grin revealing all his remaining teeth. "Kobhur chasti, Aris! Ishvala's peace to you."

"Kobhur chasti," Aris replied, handing over a freshly baked loaf of crusty bread, still warm from the oven. Aris had managed to convince Juniper to allow him access to her kitchens. Black was delighted.

During the war, their supplies dwindled and the baker began to turn inwards to his own family. With their supplies from Daliha cut off by the Amestrians and their own farmland exhausted by the demand, Kanda was suffocating. His father could only afford to bake six loaves of coarse black bread a day, wanting to keep his son and daughter alive first and foremost. Women and sometimes men formed bread lines stretching a mile or longer, and once his father sold out of bread the women fought themselves, resorting to thievery and assault all for a single piece of black bread that was really more charcoal than sustenance. Women, men, and children dropped in the streets from hunger. They closed down their shop- how could they afford to sell bread when their children were starving? Once, Aris noticed a gaunt looking woman leaning against the wall of the Kanda War Office, nursing a baby. He ran back to his home and snuck out a slice of black bread, but when he reached them again he saw that only the child was alive.

"What did you tell him?" Black ripped apart the loaf of bread and passed a generous portion to Thu. "And where is little Rina?"

"I left her with the witch. These are not talks that children should overhear... " Aris accepted a thin blanket from Thu and laid it out on the floor where he sat. Thu's voice fell to a whisper. "When he wears that uniform... I don't know if he is with us or against us. He has been kind enough, but... but I have my fears."

Black looked to Thu, and then to Aris. "What, Aris, do you think Amestris plans to do with us once they _rebuild_ Ishval? That Commander, that Lt. Colonel that calls himself Ishvalan, is planning to go to the provinces and re-establish administration there. Who is he taking with him? That Crimson Bomber. Think about this, Aris."

"That alchemist is very knowledgeable," Aris countered, unsettled by the way Black looked at him. "We need Scar with us here in Kanda, and there isn't any other Ishvalan that can go. This is their mission, you know. We can't just demand-"

Black interrupted, "but that's exactly what we should do! Where is Ishval in all of this? Kanda is being ruled by an Amestrian military force, Aris. Don't you see? How is this any better than the Annexation? We are still not free. We are still not independent. We are still slaves of Amestris."

"We cannot be independent," Aris ground out, frustrated that Black wasn't seeing things as they were. He was like this during the war, and Aris was disappointed that he hadn't changed. The old man had always been a dreamer, raised in an aristocratic military family in Old Ishval and having never tasted real poverty. Aris wished he could understand what a blessing it was now for many families to have food three times a day and a safe place to sleep. Could they not enjoy this a little longer? "Maybe one day we will, but right now we need Amestris' protection."

"Protection!" Black guffawed, "you have been so long a slave that when your master whips you three times instead of five, you count it as a blessing! Ishval is being rebuilt by Amestrians, we are ruled by Amestrian soldiers, we have no real government of our own... Scar is a puppet, and the Amestrians are smart to use him. A priest is socially influential but lacks political power, and that priest will keep us all meek like sheep. Remember what he said- that he was to be our liaison to the Amestrians, that he was here to offer _spiritual support_. You honestly believe that we will one day have our own government? Bah!" He spat on the ground. "We are still annexed to Amestris. Don't you see why Amestris is pouring all her funds on us?"

Aris was silent, and Black's words hung jagged in the evening air. Finally the baker spoke. "I would like to believe it is because they want to rectify their past wrongs."

Thu pulled back her scarf and tossed it on the ground. "What kind of government would do that without expectation of something in return? They rebuilt us like a tribute state, and this is what we are."

Aris blinked, gathering himself for a moment. Each time Thu asserted herself, she always took him aback eloquence- the woman had been very active politically in Daliha, but since her escape to Xerxes she concealed the fact that she was educated. The image she gave off to others was one of a modest and unassuming Dalihan mother, and Aris had no doubt that even Lt Col. Miles was tricked.

She was once a beekeeper's daughter. Dalihan honey was prized above all. Aris knew what Thu saw in the Amestrian government. Like how the beekeeper kept his bees in white and blue boxes and harvested the honey they produced, Thu saw that the Ishvalans had become the bees.

"There is a reason for this arrangement," Thu continued. "Yes, the water is sweet now, but what happens after? They plan to establish industry in Ishval but only for raw materials. They will force Kanda to produce textiles, force Gunja to produce ores, force Daliha to become their bread-basket. And then they will use us as their slaves. We will become a crippled country with an economy bound to exports to Amestris- for what option do we have? We will become a trading state with no sustainable industry of our own. The Amestrians will control our economy, our military, our government. I am sick of playing their game, Aris. Look what's happened to my son! My poor sweet boy!" She was overwhelmed with anger, with that scathing fury that suddenly made her a stranger to the baker, who'd only seen her as the quiet and demure woman she pretended to be. "We had the people at our back last night, Aris. We could have overwhelmed them. We could have."

Aris threw his hands up in exasperation. "And then what, Thu? What do we do then? This was always the problem with you radical reformers, even during the war. You just wanted to destroy everything, push Amestris out. But what would we have then? Nothing!" He caught his breath, challenging Black and Thu's stunned and furious glares with his own. "We still have no government, nothing that the people can support. If Amestris goes, then we only have anarchy. Is that what you wanted, Thu? For Rina and Aris?"

The woman only sneered; she did not look away. "We are not radicals," she said instead in a low voice, "how is it radical to want freedom? It is you who is wrong, you who believe that anything good could come of this-"

Black was spooning another cup of diesel into the oil drum. Aris could no longer contain himself. With one swift movement, he knocked the can out of Black's hand. The diesel splashed on the ground. Aris picked up the empty cup and thrust it at Thu's face. "Who gave us this diesel to have the fire, Thu? Answer me!" When the woman refused to utter a word, Aris continued. "Don't you see that it's better to compromise and cooperate with them? Let us build ourselves up, let us develop an identity again. It's the only way we can survive as a people, as a culture, as a nation."

"Enough!" Black cried, taking the can from Aris _._ "I'll tell you what we need to do. We get our promises from them while we can, while they are in our debt, we must have a written treaty. A declaration. Ishval cannot be governed from the outside. They will come to know this."

"That already exists," Aris argued, "the Restoration Order."

"That's an operational mission statement," Thu bit back bitterly, "it means nothing to us. They can amend it or discard it at their will. We must not let them lead us like sheep. We are the lions, not they!"

Black's face lit up. "Lion!" He gasped. "The Lion!"

Thu was as against this idea as Aris was. She echoed his words before they even left his mouth. "You will not bring her into this!"

"But she is the Lion of Hajra," Black went on, and it was clear to both Thu and Aris that the old man was already taken with the idea and could not be convinced otherwise. "She has the will to stand up to the Amestrians. She struck down their head alchemist, that bastard Kimblee, and she has not been punished. See how they fear her! See how our people are roused by her!"

"You cannot cage a lion and force it to do your will," the baker ground out between teeth clenched in a snarl. "A lion is not a slave." He could feel the rift, as wide as a chasm. Thu and Black's vision of Ishval was that of the old aristocratic traditionalists, who only wanted Ishval to return to its days of independence and glory. People like Aris and his father were modern reformers, who wanted to forge a new Ishvallan identity and thrust the nation into the modern age. Thu and Black would not stand with him, and he could not afford to lose Kaysi in the battle for Ishval.

"No," Black agreed, "but the people talk between one another. They are feeling the stirrings of apprehension. And when they rallied together last night to protest against the Amestrians, I think they felt alive for the first time in a long time. I know I did. They had something to fight for. If it weren't for your daughter," here he looked to Thu, "I wonder what could have happened. We have power, and we must not hesitate to use it. I will speak to the lioness tomorrow at dawn. We will have our answers."

Aris made a move to argue against Black, but the old man waved him off. Thu set a delicate hand on his shoulder, and shook her head only slightly. Aris fumed, knowing that he could not change Black's mind. "I must go, then," he lied, hurriedly getting up and brushing the dust off his pants. "I have more bread to distribute." It was a blatant untruth, but only Thu saw through it. Black was too occupied in the grandeur of his own thoughts to consider anything else.

The baker stalked away towards the camp. He had to find Kaysi and warn her before sunrise.

* * *

 **Scar**

Before the annexation, Ishval was a land of disparate polities. They were no more family to each other than Aeruguo and Amestris, or Xing and Xerxes during the old times of Armuun the Conquerer.

It was Amestris that first brought the great warring states of the desert under one polity, and it was not done without bloodshed. Throughout the centuries of war, the priests of Ishvala persevered, preached the Old Truth, held the people together when all they wanted to do was to tear each other apart.

He remembered how it felt when he first heard of the world outside of his province. His brother used to tell him outlandish stories when he returned from his "trips". Evram told him about black and white animals in Xing that moved very slowly and ate long green sticks. Scar heard of mechanical beasts made out of metal that Amestrians sat in and rode around like horses. Scar had known of these things before, he knew of their existence, but it was still strange to visualize it all.

"Do they have Ishvala?" He'd asked Evram about the Amestrians, "do they have a God?"

"No," Evram replied solemnly, "they don't."

Scar frowned. "Then how...?" he asked, "how do they win their wars? How do they keep their people from doing terrible things? How do they find purpose in their lives?"

"They're different," Evram told him, "they don't need priests, or churches, or a God. They're a different people, a different society."

The obvious question hung unspoken in the air. That was before the war. Then it became even less possible to ask the question. Was the Amestrian way _better_?

When Miles first approached Scar and asked him to become the Amestrian liaison in New Ishval, Scar was apprehensive. Ishvala's priests were not political figures. He did not want any role in political rule. But that wasn't the issue.

The issue was that Miles and the Amestrians were well aware of this limitation.

He held a sort of 'town hall' in the morning every week in front of the Amestrian CP. Any person could attend and voice their thoughts, regardless of background, age, or gender.

The morning was misty- spring rains were on their way, and a brilliant strip of red spilled across the sky as the sun peaked over the distant mountains. A huge crowd of Ishvalans had gathered around the CP- numbers that Scar had never seen before at a town hall meeting. He swallowed nervously, having expected a greater turnout as a result of the events last night, but not having expected this amount of people. When they saw him approach, they were silent, morose.

In the crowd he saw Ishvalans bearing the broad, flat faces of the Dalihans, others with the high and prominent cheekbones of the Gunjans. He saw a man whose eyes resembled black olives, framed by long silver tresses and a gangly beard, and a very tall Kandan woman of remarkable beauty. It was a mix of people that made no sense, which jarred the priest on this hazy morning.

"Good morning, friends," he addressed the crowd, willing his voice to remain warm and smiling at those he recognized. "There are many of you this morning, thank you all for coming. I assume you are wanting news about Asir. Unfortunately, we have no news right now but will update you all as soon as we are informed."

The crowd only stared back at him, completely still until a hunched old man pushed his way through to stand before Scar. He leaned heavily on a cane, and the effort of walking seemed to exhaust him. The priest recognized him immediately, and bowed in respect.

"We didn't come to hear about the child," Black said, gasping for breath. "We came for the Amestrian officer."

"The lieutenant colonel does not participate in these town halls," Scar explained, remembering Black's outburst several months ago. He wasn't certain what Black wanted, but Scar did sense the change in the crowd. People began to shift from side to side, like a bolt of lightning had just revived them from a stupor. Between heads of silver hair and cloth, he saw the red shawl of the lioness. "This town hall is for us Ishvalans, it is so you can speak your mind. Now, honored Black, what is on your mind?"

"Oh," Black grinned toothily, "there are many questions that torture my mind." There was no kindness in his eyes, and Scar felt his confidence faltering. _What was going on?_ The crowd began to murmur, and Scar felt like an entire exchange had just passed right over his head. He was never good at picking up on the nuances of a conversation, the subtleties of politics. He was good at listening to what was said, but not good at understanding what wasn't said.

"Yes...?" He prompted, at a loss. The red shawl moved, a head turned. Scar's periphery was set afire by the tension. Black, on the other hand, only leaned on his cane.

When he spoke, his words hit like bullets. "Where is our Ishvalan government? What is the use of a 'town hall' meeting that is led by a _priest?_ "

"Black is right," the tall woman's voice emerged, "a priest is the head of culture, not politics. You should not be here."

Never had any Ishvalan ever said anything like this to Scar since the establishment of New Ishval. But the words rang in his memory. Abruptly, he was brought back to that time when he was running, running so desperately towards the sound of gunshots while others were fleeing. He remembered the smell of blood on the ground, the muscular arm that held him back. _Don't come any closer,_ the words were growled in his ear. _I am a preist_ , his memory-voice responded, delirious with fear and frustration. _Let me through_.

Then he recalled with bone-chilling accuracy the feeling of cold steel against his forehead, the sight of looking up into the barrel of a loaded pistol.

"Move aside," Black ordered, standing as tall as he could. His voice brought Scar back into the present, dragged him from the memory of Buramos, the memory of war.

Scar realized he had been backed against the entrance of the CP. Inside, Miles and his men were working. "No," the priest maintained, "no, I will not." His feet felt like huge blocks of clay- he wasn't even sure if he could move them if he wanted to.

"Then bring us the officer," Aris spoke up, and Scar's attention snapped to locate the baker in the crowd. This wasn't right... Aris was his friend, and he supported Scar as the Amestrian liaison. He always had. "Let us speak to him."

"Yes," said the crowd, "yes."

Scar had never, ever brought Ishvalans into the CP as part of his weekly conference, but this week was not like any other. How was he to handle this situation? Such a scenario was never discussed before. What if he continued to resist? These Ishvalans seemed to stand in unison. Like last night, they seemed to move like one body. The priest was only one man, and Scar knew they were right.

He stared at Black, recalled that he was merely a priest against a former Gunjan army commander, against a crowd which seemed to have no sympathy for him. The crowd did not speak out to support him. It was like last night's events took their souls away.

"Why are you doing this?" The priest stammered, "what have we not given to you? What have I not done for you? Every morning I negotiate with the Amestrians to give you all the supplies you need. Every day I help with the building, and all day I lead your prayers. What are you not satisfied with? Please, tell me, _this is what I am here for_."

Some of the crowd cast their eyes down, humiliated. But they did not speak. It was only two men who spoke for them all. "We are glad for what you do," Black responded, "we just want to know what we're building towards is all."

"But you are fed, you are cared for, you are-"

Black snarled, slamming his cane against the ground. "We are not dogs, Buramos!"

Scar was confused, disappointed, distraught... more Ishvalans had arrived, roused by the noise of their exchange, and stood along the sidelines, watching. Old Man Juriv arrived as well, and there was such sadness in his gaze for both priests knew that the time was coming when men would declare themselves above their priests, above Ishvala.

 _Ishvala, please protect us._

For a brief moment, he remembered the feeling of flesh cracking and exploding under his hands, the wet splatter of blood against his face. The death of so many, all his doing. For Ishvala. He remembered that he was still capable. He hadn't lost his alchemy. He could fight. For Ishvala, for Ishval.

He raised his hand, formed a fist, then lowered it. Black watched his movements with a steady and piercing gaze, and Scar turned away.

At last he relented. He had no choice.

"Not all of you," he told Black, praying that Miles was prepared. "Only two."

Black and Aris looked at each other, and Aris turned towards the crowd. "Go," the woman called Thu spoke, urging the two men on with a shake of her hands.

"Wait," Black tapped Aris' calf with the tip of his cane. "Not you," he said.

"No," Aris retorted, sneaking glances at Scar, who was becoming increasingly more confused. "Let me go with you."

"Not you," Black maintained, "let the lion come."

Now it was the witch's turn to speak. "Not my daughter! Are you insane? You would bring her to the butcher's block to be slaughtered!"

"She is a lion, not a lamb." Black was resolute, waving away the distraught mother like he was merely swatting a fly. "Let her choose." He raised a hand towards Kaysi's direction, smiling with all his remaining teeth.

Scar found the lion within the crowd, met her startled expression with his own.

* * *

 **Kimblee**

The journey to nowhere was dense as a bog, and Kimblee was somewhere in the middle, in the gap, looking down onto the universe. Emotionless, objectless, neutral. He was tired. What was the point of thinking any more? Kimblee felt so a part of this mortal world that thinking felt like another form of breathing- conditioned, choiceless. What was the point?

He heard his mother's voice.

 _Someone is dying, Zolf._

So what? He pushed her voice aside, muffling it into the void like crushing the bones of a small bird. Someone must be dying somewhere. Just as someone else was being born, someone else was waking. At this moment someone was walking into a bathroom, someone was committing a murder, someone was falling in love.

He was defeated. For what was the point? He always remained on the outside of the world he built. He didn't feed his mistakes, but his mistakes fed him. He used to convince himself that everything he did followed the path of inspiration, of rapture, of _art_ , but at the moment of creation the inspiration was transformed into such a profound loneliness that Kimblee could never face. He'd trusted that he could imagine in one life and live in the other, but this pain united both worlds and roused him to consciousness.

His neck itched. He shifted a little, and the sudden pain that shot up his arm was a lightning bolt, jolting him up in the bed. A bead of sweat dropped from the rim of his nose, and Kimblee shivered; cold, alone, and with a head full of cotton.

He looked down at his body, felt disillusioned, disappointed- and couldn't move his left leg. His left arm, too, was paralyzed. He stared, and saw a thick wrap of bandages and dressing squeezing his left hand and knee in like a cocoon. The feeling of steel touched his heart.

He glanced at his other hand, the one that worked. The sun sigil formed an eye that seemed to blink at Kimblee. Crimson Alchemist gasped, and a vision intruded into his mind of a huge, singular eye opening out of a gate... Countless small hands came twisting to embrace him, delicate like the hands of children but long, black, and excruciating. _No_ , he said, shouted _no_ into the abyss, for his heart was split open by steel and inside was the worst desire to live. No, no, he was not defeated.

He blinked, and the hallucination fled. "No!" Kimblee cried out, jerking up. "Come back!" His working hand flailed in front of him, trying to reach something- anything.

A woman suddenly appeared from behind the curtain. Kimblee was surprised, for he did not hear her enter. His hand dropped, dismayed.

"You're the one who plays the oud," he said, remembering the arch of her brows against the deep set of her eyes. She had the bones of a northern woman, a woman from the Dead Sea beyond the desert. He had passed by there once on his way to Gunja. Dasht was a land of monotonous regularity, but if one looked closely, tough scrub grasses and tiny flowering shrubs could be seen to burgeon out of the endless flat sands. He saw no settlements, no sign of human life- it made him wonder if the Dasht people were really human. Maybe they were the Ishvalan _kiyyah_ of legend, living in glass houses invisible to the human eye, only leaving their mirage-home to perform their sorcery and lead the true believers astray.

"Yes." She set down a metal basin of hot water in which a clean cloth was submerged. She did not even look at Kimblee, nor did she ask for his permission before she gently grasped his left hand at the wrist and began unraveling the bandages.

He asked her how long he'd been sleeping, to which she responded with "about a day". She was trying to give off the air of detachment, this Kimblee could see, but the witch's movements were distracted. Though her hands were calm and sure, her fingertips lightly trembled. The Crimson Lotus felt those minute vibrations on his inflamed skin as the heartbeat of a small bird.

The scars were not bad. Kimblee found himself looking at the wound in the palm of his left hand with complete detachment. The excitement was over. His wounds were not grave enough to risk his life, but they were also not trivial enough to be easily brushed off. He remembered how it felt to fight Scar on that moonlit train. Freshly discharged from prison, his limbs were clumsy from lack of regular exercise. He knew from the start that he was no match for Scar, when it came down to it, but he fought anyway. Why? And why did he dare the Gunjan fighter to kill him?

It was to test his limits; it was to remind him of the urgency of living, because Kimblee was becoming bored. Still he was the Mad Bomber, and he chased the drug that he'd become addicted to during the war. He'd gotten a taste of it finally when the mine exploded, _but he wasn't close enough, damn it_. He was restored to himself after the excitement wore off, back into a monotonous, regimented life where he barely existed. Even the motions he went through to save the boy were nothing but muscle memory- unexciting, meaningless. Outside of the shade and calm of his existence was a swarming, sweaty heat that pricked at him, tempting him. He hadn't yet reached his limits, damn it! And it was the cry of reality that kept pulling him back, this tasteless reality that was too hot and too scheduled and altogether too obvious. He was chasing himself to his loneliness, and then retreat and begin the cycle again.

Yet there were greater things at hand.

He slowly recalled the events leading up to his loss of conscious, which only piqued his curiosity further. The woman who'd come out of the crowd was shrouded in red. She wielded the Gunjan warrior's scimitar with expert precision, her hand neither wavering nor hesitating. He caught her eyes at the moment of disaster. Her eyes were as red as another Ishvalan's, but they were flecked with gold. Her air, too, had a burnished yellow look to it that reminded Kimblee of the half-Amestrian children born as a result of the Amestrian occupation of Ishval. Rina was one such child. He remembered he cried out, but he did not feel the pain until much later when she plunged her blade into his hand.

But there was something odd about that pain. Kimblee recalled that his whole body felt electrified- he howled and contorted himself... ah, yes! Kimblee understood now. The thought of the oyster returned- but why was she the lemon?

Ah, here was a foul mystery in New Ishval.

First was the mine. Kimblee almost felt that it was not purely accidental. He had not yet told Miles about his thoughts. The mine could not have been left over from the war. It was almost impossible. Someone must have planted it. He hadn't told Miles about it yet.

Second was the young woman, the one who'd condemned him to his present situation. He did not resent her for what she did- after all, he welcomed it onto himself. But what was it about her that so unsettled him? There was something very familiar about her, something that reminded of a memory he couldn't place.

Before he lost consciousness, he watched the Witch of Dasht emerge from the crowd. The shrouded woman dropped her scimitar. She uttered _'uma'_ , and then all was black.

"I hear you are a witch, is that true?"

Isle's lips pressed together in distaste, but she did not reject the claim. "That's what they call me. I'm merely a healer."

"You're not just a healer. I know what you are." He smiled, delighting in the conflicted expression on her face. Outside, he heard Dr. Marcoh and Dr. Knox moving around, speaking with their patients, blissfully unaware of the intense exchange that was taking place behind the curtains of their field tent. "Have you ever heard of the Ouroboros?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." She made a show of closing herself off, but she did not move to leave. Kimblee realized, victoriously, that this surely meant that she did not know.

"The image of a snake or serpent eating its own tail, in a perpetual cycle. Yes, you have seen it. I can tell." He leaned forward to whisper at the witch's ear. He was so close that he smelled the perfume of pomegranate that lingered in her hair. "Tell me, have you seen it on your daughter's body?"

The witch stood up, and she was so still- not a single strand of hair moved out of place. Time seemed to drag to a slow crawl. Even the sounds outside stopped- the voices of the doctors working in the other room, the sounds of construction, the shouts of soldiers, the rumbling of truck engines. The air was rank with the stench of something burnt. There was nothing in existence except the strained vibration between them as they tried to determine whether the other was friend or foe.

The tent flap abruptly opened. The world condensed, contorted, shrank into the familiar face of Lt Colonel Miles emerging into the tent. "Oh," he said, and smiled warmly at Isle. "I did not know you would be here." Scar's frame appeared behind him, comically trying to refuse a cup of coffee being pushed at him from Dr. Knox.

Kimblee looked between the two of them, bewildered. He slowly started to register again the sounds from outside- the laughter of soldiers forming up for dinner, the clatter of dishes and pans from the mess tent.

He did not dare look at the Witch of Dasht, not even as she gathered her things and gave him instructions on how to treat his injuries. She spoke to him like they did not know each other, like the conversation they'd just had did not occur. It was so strange, so odd. Kimblee couldn't help but wonder himself if he'd imagined it all in his delirium.

After she left, Miles inquired about his injuries and Kimblee answered something or another- he couldn't remember what he said.

"There is much we need to talk about," Miles told him, looking at Scar as he did so.

* * *

 **Miles**

"A few things," Miles said, sitting himself down and retrieving a scrunched up note from his breast pocket and studying it for a second before making a dissatisfied sound and tucking it away. "It's a shame we have to talk here, but there are too many eyes and ears in the CP. I trust Marcoh and Knox completely."

"There is the witch," Kimblee mentioned, but Miles only guffawed and went on so dismissively like he hadn't heard. Only Scar met Kimblee's eyes and a sentiment seemed to pass between the two.

"First of all, it seems your little performance a few nights ago has been quite sensational." Miles spoke in a light, mocking tone but his words had a condescending bite. "The Gunjans, it seems, have been much inspired by this young woman, the witch's daughter."

"So?"

Kimblee's disinterest, when he obviously knew better, pissed the Lt. Colonel off. Scar, it seemed, was equally unimpressed.

"The last thing we want is the beginnings of anything resembling a rebellion here, Kimblee. Don't do anything like that again."

Here Scar, clad in his traditional _shamla_ , added, "Miles and I have decided not to punish Kaysi. After all, you were quite literally asking for it. However, it seems that a group of Gunjans and some Kandans have begun to associate with her. We don't want any trouble here. To punish her would be to give fuel to these people."

"What?" Kimblee laughed, finding the thought ridiculous. "You really think the Ishvalans want to _revolt_? At this point in time? They're still learning to crawl, how can they run?"

"Don't speak of my people like that," Scar scowled, "we are not as crippled as you imagine. I still hold these town hall meetings once a week, you realize. This morning consisted of one such meeting. I have never seen these people so agitated. It... it got a little out of hand."

Kimblee searched Scar's face and Miles knew that the alchemist understood that they were holding something back. "But if they revolt," Kimblee challenged, "how will they build their houses? How will they establish large scale agriculture without our advisors and technicians?"

"There are many Ishvalans among us who believe in freedom above all. Surely you remember the first Ishvalan nationalist movement... in 1906?" Perhaps Kimblee was still under the weight of sleep, and needed his memory jolted. There were other pressing things on Miles' mind, but he needed to ensure that Kimblee understood what was unfolding outside of the tent walls.

"Ah," the other lit up, "that was the year of Order 3047."

"Right." Scar seamlessly took over the conversation from Miles, "and because of the book burning and executions that year, there was a massive rebellion in Kanda that resulted in two Amestrian officials being kidnapped in 1907. Do you remember this?"

Seeing that Kimblee was starting to connect the thoughts in his head, Scar leaned forward and spoke softly. "The rebellion was aided by guerilla groups, the most prominent of which was the Hajra group. It was the only guerilla group that recruited from all the provinces of Ishval, and it was the Hajra leader Orhan that first introduced the concept of Ishvalan nationalism during this time."

Miles had begun to pace, looking more anxious by the second. The sight of such a big man making his rounds around the tiny tent must have been ridiculous. "Now, this was crushed by the Amestrians. The official government of Kanda, the Chieftan-"

"An Amestrian puppet," Scar snapped, his distaste evident.

"-the Chieftan did not endorse this rebellion. It was formed by an underground group, which allied with the Hajra. Many of them were killed or otherwise deemed as traitors. Now, you will remember, the witch's daughter is associated with the Hajra. And many of the civilians of New Ishval remember the Hajra and what it stood for. During a time that Ishval had no proper native military force, the Hajra geurillas were the closest thing."

Seeing that Kimblee was starting to doze off in the middle of this desperately serious discussion, Scar reached out and shook his shoulder. "Wake up, you bastard! This is serious! Did you see the crowd that gathered outside of the CP that night when Aris was injured?" His voice rose and then abruptly lowered, the priest remembering to be quiet. Still, his words were hoarse and bitter. "Did you feel the energy of that crowd? I have only seen something like that once- in 1907 when the Kandans turned against the Gunjans and murdered fifteen of them in the bazaar. I was _there_ , Kimblee."

"So what the fuck has happened?" Kimblee threw his hands up in exasperation. His left hand, swathed in bandages up to the forearm, only lifted halfway. Did they kidnap our officers again? Are they killing each other? Has the next prophet of Ishvala been found? Is it the end of times?"

"No," Miles conceded with all seriousness, not wanting to play Kimblee's game. "It has not come to that. But we have to be careful. Listen, Kimblee. This morning the Ishvalans entered the CP. They demanded a treaty, a written declaration of Amestrian intentions. They threatened us with an uprising."

"Who?" He saw Kimblee's face abruptly grow dim, as though a candle was extinguished. "Who did?"

"It doesn't matter," Scar cut Miles off when the man was about to answer. "Something needs to be done. I can't..." He struggled to admit it. " _We_ can't allow a nationalist movement." Scar was visibly conflicted as he said this. "The people have little understanding of how much help we need. Historically, Ishvalans have always seen themselves as self-sustaining. That's... that's not how the world works in the present day. The religious institution... we don't have much control over government policy. I just don't want to see my people suffer, and suffering is what we'll have if there is a revolt here."

"They'll think you're a traitor," the alchemist breathed, astonished.

"It has not come to that," Scar insisted in a tone that suggested the conversation was over. "And if we are careful, it will not come to that." Here he lowered his eyes and shook his head very lightly in resignation. "I do wish for Ishval to be free one day. I know it is possible. But that day is not today. Today we need to heal our wounds, that is all."

"Well, isn't this a happy situation?" Kimblee chuckled, and Scar only gaped, incredulous. "You're like Ishval's obstinate parent; your child wants to study the liberal arts, but you won't have any of it. It must be medicine or law, because that's the traditional way."

Miles cut in calmly, laying a hand on the priest's shoulder. He sensed now that Kimblee was just pressing Scar's buttons now out of his own amusement. It was always Miles who understood Kimblee's humor better, perhaps as a result of being raised in the same culture. Amestrian humor did tend to be sharper and more confrontational than the self-deprecating flavor of Ishvalan humor. "Scar, don't you have a class to teach at the school?"

With one last cautionary look at Kimblee, Scar caved. "Yes. I will speak to the two of you at some other time. Ishvala's peace be with you both."

After he left, Miles got up from the wooden chair and sat himself instead on Kimblee's cot. The cot lurched up from the added weight, and Miles laughed at the alchemist's venomous glare. "What, this feels familiar?"

"Fuck off."

Miles brushed off the halfhearted threat. "How do you feel?"

"I haven't felt like this in ages," Kimblee told him sadly, "for such a long time whenever I was injured I had the knowledge that I would soon be healed. There was always the stone... During the extermination, I did not fear death. During those days after I was released from prison, I did not fear either. I had the stone. And now I don't." He looked at his bandaged hand, and then flicked the edge of his thin blanket up to reveal his bandaged knee. "What did the doctor say?"

"Marcoh says you will recover." Miles carefully watched Kimblee's expression, watched the tensing of his jaw, the subtle flickering in his brow. _Kimblee was afraid,_ he realized. The Crimson Alchemist was afraid that his body would not recover, that he was _human_ , that he perhaps would not walk again. Kimblee was not a person that showed his thoughts on his face, so Miles was slightly surprised that Kimblee had relaxed his demeanor around him- even if only by a little.

"I see." Kimblee prodded at the bandages on his knee, and then remembered, "there is something I must tell you."

"Yes?"

"The UXO that maimed Asir... It had to have been planted. Did our troops manage to retrieve the shrapnel?"

Miles shook his head. "There was nothing to be recovered."

"It was a T-8 Firefly," the alchemist asserted without missing a beat, "I am absolutely positive. That explains why it was not picked up by our metal detectors, and why it left no shrapnel."

"That's an Aerugan mine," Miles whispered, "this is a serious accusation you are making." Aeruguo had been involved in conflict with Amestris for centuries; indeed, during the Ishvalan civil war Aeruguo supplied Ishval with weapons and ammunitions in order to weaken Amestris' defenses.

"Think about it," Kimblee prompted, "Aeruguo doesn't want Ishval to become properly annexed to Amestris. Amestris would be made too strong by Ishval's raw materials and resources. It would rather see Ishval destroyed than be an ally to Amestris, and isn't that what they accomplished when they forced Ishval to fight back against us during the war?"

It clicked. Miles leaned back, trying to process the implications of what Kimblee was suggesting. Faced with the mounting evidence that did in fact make sense, he couldn't push aside the possibility. "Amestris borders Aeruguo to the north, and Ishval is to the east. If Amestris went to war with Aeruguo with Ishval as an annexed state, then Aeruguo would have war on two fronts."

"Yes, and that is Aeruguo's worst nightmare. It would fall, without question." Kimblee sat up tall in his cot, lit up by the intrigue. Miles imagined that Kimblee was a man who deeply enjoyed unraveling mysteries and contemplating political dilemmas. He took in the alchemist's analysis with a deepening frown.

"Remember also the Ishvalans' hatred of Aeruguo. It betrayed Ishval completely during the civil war- it supplied Ishval with weapons, yes, but that was to their advantage. They did nothing to help the Ishvalans otherwise, and used them as fodder to weaken the Amestrian south. With Ishval destroyed, the Aerugans accomplished what they failed to do in 1721. The destruction of Ishval as a polity and the weakening of Amestrian military forces played perfectly in the favor of Aeruguo."

Miles made an unsettled noise in his throat. "Of course... With Ishval being rebuilt by Amestris, the Ishvalans would be expected to have allied relations with Amestrians while counting Aeruguo as the common enemy. Amestris intends to restore Ishval as a trading point, and likely the Fuhrer will impose harsher tariffs against Aeruguo. All of this is terrible news for Aerugan foreign affairs and economy. If Ishval sides with Amestris and becomes a part of its polity, then Aeruguo would be a sitting duck to be shot."

Kimblee nodded, sinking back down onto his cot. "And so they planted a bomb here where they knew I would be working, in the hopes of turning public opinion against us. If we consider what you and Scar told me just now, it appears to have worked. There was no talk of these 'groups' before the UXO, and now suddenly they have appeared."

Miles cursed. "This is fucked up."

A sigh, followed by a resigned shrug from the alchemist.

He had no choice, then. Since Mira's phone call, the situation had grown more tenuous and complicated. Now with Kimblee's assertion that Aeruguo was becoming involved, Miles couldn't afford to leave. "I have to stay here," he murmured, more to himself than to Kimblee. But the other man caught his words.

"You wanted to leave?"

So Miles told Kimblee of what transpired during his phone call with Mira. He'd discussed it already with Scar, who responded with anger. "You can't leave us," Scar had said, "you promised! Is Ishval no more important to you than a woman? Think of all the people here, Miles. This is bigger than your romance. Don't you understand?" And Miles could not respond, for the thought of leaving Mira behind - _for what? For a land that didn't feel like home?_ \- was too much. When he finished, he waited for Kimblee's response, praying that the other would not mock him for his sentimentality. He only had a few more days to decide.

"You can't leave," Kimblee asserted, "if you left, if these 'groups' are not controlled, do you think Scar will have any power here? There will be uprisings."

"What do you mean, Scar won't have power?" Miles was genuinely confused by this. The Ishvalans loved Scar! They listened to him! Why wouldn't they obey him?

"Weren't you listening to his words? Watching his face?" Kimblee leaned in until Miles could feel Kimblee's breath on his skin. "The man is scared, Miles. Ishvalan society is run by two separate hierarchies of power," Kimblee explained, "do you remember? The first hierarchy consists of the king or chieftan and his advisors, which would mostly be drawn from the military elite. The second represents the clerical institution, held by priests and religious scholars. Theoretically speaking, priests did have good social influence- but only in some areas of life and society. I didn't want to bring it up to Scar while he was here, but certainly he remembers how powerless he felt during the civil war. The priests could do nothing. Intellectual groups began to see the religious institution as superfluous and a hindrance to reform. It conflicts him now, don't you see? That's why he is so reluctant to act independently, or take political control. "

"I see," said Miles, "they saw that Amestris was not run by two power ladders but only one- the secular military bureaucracy. Then they saw how Aeruguo was flourishing also as a secular state... Well, any educated person would draw certain conclusions from that."

"Precisely. You are more important than you know, Miles. If you are here, you represent the military elite that the majority of Ishvalans can trust for the moment. Yes, there will be a few who oppose you, but your presence keeps the peace."

Miles rubbed his temples, willing the incoming headache to _fuck off_. Scar didn't want to be a political figure in any way- he wanted to preserve the old institutions of Ishval, and refused to dabble in politics. Miles could administer to Ishval, as was his job, but he could only do it as an Amestrian commander. He was starting to understand why the Ishvalans would begin to doubt and become frustrated or anxious. He had to play his cards very carefully from now on- but for what? Now that the first stages of the Operation were complete and new issues had came up, what direction was he to take?

Certainly Mira loved him and wanted to spend her life with him. But why did Miles have to choose between himself and Ishval?

Was he going to be happy, retired and living in a mansion in Amestris, reading reports of the worsening situation in Ishval and _not being able to do anything_?

The answer had been so clear, all along.

"I'm going to go some calls," he said resolutely, rising from the cot.

"To the Major General?"

"Yes, but also to Colonel Mustang and to the Fuhrer. I'm... going to need some guidance on how to approach this situation."

"Fine," the alchemist muttered, and then yelled after him as he left the tent- "but first go find me something to walk with!"

* * *

 **The Armstrong Household**

Her mother had always been happy to be an ornament in her father's home, sitting proudly at his side during the long dinner parties. But now as her husband lay ailing, she saw herself for the first time as the defenseless, ignorant woman she was. Unable to face the world without her crutch, she became a completely different woman. Gone was her warmth and eloquence- now she wandered the mansion like a ghost, ablaze with jewels but empty of spirit.

Olivier had taken leave from Briggs to set her family affairs in order. She did not want to be here. Running the mansion stressed her more than leading a platoon attack, even when there wasn't much to do. The Armstrong mansion had a roster of financial advisors, investment officers, supply clerks, public affairs managers, cooks, and over fifty maids and servants to keep the household running. But without her father's direction, the Armstrong house fell to a vegetative state- existing, but not living.

Alexander accompanied her to several events in their father's name, and both siblings were left struggling to comprehend and find their places in the aristocratic world. Her brother could not stand it, and it showed on his face. Olivier was always better at guarding her expressions, and so she fared better as she navigated the meaningless polite conversations, the hollow compliments, the pointless speculations on trivial events and trends, and the "non-profit fundraisers" that must have spent at least half of what they received on the lavish dinner party.

There were countless aristocrats who came to express their sympathy, but there was no kindness in their faces- only the same painted lips, the same trimmed brows, the same practiced smiles. She was disgusted. Many of these men and women only thought about money, had no depth to their ambitions, and filled their heads with trivial matters. Worst of all, there were the young heirs who sought her hand. They did not see her for who she was, did not respect her for the Major General that she was. Rather, they knew her for her last name: Armstrong, the wealthiest and most influential family in Amestris.

She wanted nothing more than for Connor to be at her side, to be her anchor when she felt the rest of the world had gone flipping mad. She knew she was being selfish, but she felt she was drowning and all her experience as a Major General failed to help her. Her father, ill with tuberculosis, could barely speak on his good days. It was all he could do to write his will, making Olivier his primary heir, leaving a lesser portion for his wife and other children but stipulating that it was Olivier's responsibility to care for them.

It was clear that he expected her to retire completely from her post in Briggs. Olivier knew that she would eventually adapt and overcome, that she would learn to manage the house like her father did. An unmarried heiress would be harassed and never taken seriously, but even worse to Olivier was the thought of marrying a man who only loved her for her money.

Her mother was completely against the thought of her marrying Miles. "Why would you taint our family's bloodline?" She demanded, terrified that her daughter was throwing common sense to the wind. She hadn't supported Olivier joining the military, and she swore to never agree to a marriage with a lowborn Ishvalan. "He only wants you for your money! That is what all poor men desire."

"Not him," Olivier argued back, and her mother shook with anger. "He's a man of duty, a man that has greater dreams than to become rich."

Lady Armstrong clenched her fragile fists, her huge ruby rings gleaming on her thin fingers. "If you marry him, he will run this house into the ground."

"No," she corrected her, smiling. " _I_ will run this house. My father made me the heir, not my husband."

Her mother only continued her barrage, "you say he is a man of duty? What man doesn't want this life? What child of poverty wouldn't jump at the chance to leap to the top of Amestrian society overnight?"

That argument was two weeks ago.

Her last call to Connor was four days ago.

She'd just picked up the phone a few seconds ago, and she wasn't expecting it to be Connor.

"Mira," came the voice, shaken by static.

"Connor," Olivier was so happy to hear his voice. It had been a difficult day. When she gave him his test four days ago, she'd expected that he would either call her immediately after, or he would wait until the very last day to mutter some sort of unclear and confused apology. But the voice that met her on the other side of the line was tender and sure.

"I would love nothing more than to dedicate my life to you, to marry you and be your husband," said Connor, "but I cannot leave my post here. Ishval needs me, and though my heart is in Amestris with you, I cannot sacrifice the needs of all these people." He took a shaky breath. "I love you, Mira, and I only want you to be happy. But you would not be happy with me if I left Ishval to come to you. I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes, holding back the choking sobs that took her voice away. Connor wouldn't be here with her, but he'd passed the test. Even if it meant she would be alone in Amestris, it meant she would have no regrets or fears. It meant that he didn't love her money, it meant that he was still the dedicated man that she fell in love with.

"You're right," she laughed in between her gasping sobs. She couldn't tell if she was overjoyed or terrified. She couldn't stop smiling. She couldn't feel the rest of her body, couldn't see anything around her- nothing else mattered but the voice in her ear. "I would not be happy with you if you left Ishval to come to me. I wouldn't want to be the wife of a man who didn't have his own dreams. But because now I am sure you are the man that I love, the man whose wife I want to be, you'd better prepare a suit because I'm coming to you."

* * *

 **The Fuhrer's Office**

Roy Mustang dropped a memo onto the Fuhrer's desk.

The Fuhrer slowly set down his cup of tea. "What's this?" Grumman put on his reading glasses and squinted at the document.

"An after action report from Ishval," Roy replied, seating himself opposite of the Fuhrer at his desk. "I think you'll find the contents... interesting."

While the Fuhrer reviewed the report, Roy took in the remodeled office. Gone were Bradley's frescos and the marble sculptures of the busts of past generals. Gone was the obnoxious red velvet throne that dwarfed visitors to the Fuhrer's office. The bookshelves that spanned wall-to-wall were now filled with a variety of dog eared books and manuals that actually looked like they'd been read, and the imposing Amestrian flags hanging on the walls were replaced by tasteful tapestries commissioned from famous Amestrian artists. The fireplace shelf was decorated with a number of odd souvenirs from Grumman's deployments, boasting a fine bottle of brandy from Aeruguo, a steel dagger from Ishval, a child's stuffed bear from Drachma, a straw hat from Xing, and many more that Roy couldn't recognize.

Grumman set down the report, his face showing no evidence of the distressed events he'd just read. "Well, it seems there was some excitement this week in Ishval."

Roy and Grumman had known about little Asir, but the news regarding the civilian riot and attack on Kimblee, as well as the supposed Aerugan source of the bomb, was completely new. "I got a call this morning from Lt. Colonel Miles. He thinks we need to be aware of certain anti-Amestrian currents in Ishval, which frankly is not surprising given our history."

"I'd hoped that the two of them would be able to control it," Grumman grunted, pouring a cup of tea and offering it to Roy. Mustang refused it politely, a little surprised that Grumman was making his own tea. "But I suppose I was wrong." He took a sip of the tea. "Ishval is still annexed to us. I suppose the more educated Ishvalans have realized what this entails." His words were a clear warning, a veiled threat. Roy frowned, sitting up straighter in his seat. He didn't like thinking of the Ishvalans as distinctively 'educated' or 'uneducated'.

"This wasn't what I wanted," he murmured, "I didn't just want to rebuild the country, I wanted to rebuild the people."

"You can't have both," Grumman replied with an exaggerated smile, like he was trying to talk sense to some child who _just didn't understand_. "If you rebuild the people and give them their own identity, they will use it to rise up against us." He rose, still holding onto his cup of tea and saucer, and came to stand before the huge window that overlooked the gardens below. "And the only way to rebuild the country to withstand the demands of the modern world is to do it through non-Ishvalan institutions and government."

"I don't agree with that," Roy shook his head with resolution. "Ishval's own institutions are capable of reform without losing its integrity. The Amestrian administration is built on a secular society, and it will not work to govern Ishval. The Ishvalans are fiercely proud of their history and their religion. You are asking for bloodshed if you tell the Ishvalans to leave that all behind. Fuhrer, you were on my side when I first proposed this operation to you," Roy maintained, "and I know you are a man of your word."

The Fuhrer gave a chuckle. "You came to me and proposed to rebuild Ishval, and asked that the Ishvalans should be allowed to return and live there in peace. I agreed to this. They will have peace, as long as they obey. The Restoration is an _investment,_ not a _gift_. Remember that." Grumman dropped the saucer and cup onto his desk so hard that tea splattered out onto the wooden surface. "You were an idealistic young man, and you still are. I didn't support your team's decision to rebuild Ishval from the center. I wanted to establish Amestrian institutions in Kanda while the Ishvalans developed the provinces, so we can begin to establish basic industries under Amestrian monopoly. Gunja is the home of the miner, Daliha is the farmer's land, and Kanda is the seat of power. Why would you start there? It is far too easy for the Ishvalans to take control from us, and they are starting to realize it."

"It makes sense, it is what is best," Roy countered, furious that Grumman was no longer the man Roy used to idolize. "You cannot expect Ishvalans to work for a fully Amestrian government. What use is it if the Ishvalans start feeling like our slaves, laboring in the fields and mines while our Amestrian forces build their capital? These people are extremely intelligent, capable people, and they deserve better. You've forgotten what is right, what is moral."

Grumman laughed. "What is _moral?_ Says the man who sent the Mad Bomber to Ishval!"

Roy was red in the face. "I had no choice!"

"Neither do I. Look at the Amestrian currency right now- we haven't recovered from the coup, we haven't recovered from the costs of instituting the domestic reforms to replace what Bradley has done. The wealthiest slices of Amestrian society, from whom we derive our funding for these projects, don't consider their investments in Ishval to be a _gift_."

In the silence that followed as the two men collected themselves, Grumman poured more tea, steadily sipped at it, watched Roy flinch in his seat. "We can't afford to lose control in Ishval," the Fuhrer continued, "especially if Aeruguo is coming into the picture. We will make no accusations. After all, there is no evidence except the Crimson Alchemist's testimony, which I am not entirely swayed by. There is not enough structure in Ishval. That is why the people are restless. They must come to know that the Amestrian government will keep the peace and protect them. The Amestrian government is all they need. There is no space for an independent Ishvalan government. Let the people come to know this. Without mass support, troublesome groups won't get off the ground. Without their own military, without Aeruguo's support, they cannot reject our authority."

"And what if they do?" Roy had seen the Ishvalans rise up once. He knew they could do it again. "Will you send our military in to suppress it again? Will we have another bloody war? _Fuhrer?_ "

The Colonel's point hit home, and Grumman slacked his shoulders, recalling the Bradley days. _Oh, what tortured seat this was- the chair of Fuhrer_. "We can't afford that," he relented, "economically and socially, we can't afford another conflict in Ishval. We will lose much if Ishval revolts." He gazed sadly at Roy, knowing full well that the Colonel had a different vision of Ishval in mind. For Grumman, Ishval was a simply a slice of the large state that he had to administer over. He'd been to Ishval during the war, yes, but he was never on the battlefield. For Roy, Ishval was a wound, a regret, a deep guilt that yearned to be released regardless of the cost and consequences for Amestris.

"Yes, Sir," Roy closed his notebook and tucked his pen away. "I will make a visit to Ishval and examine the situation."

"Don't do anything silly," Grumman warned, "we can't afford any mistakes in Ishval."

" _I_ won't do anything," Roy assured him, a tone of deference veiling the venom beneath.

He would do it. He would light the fire.

* * *

 _End ch. 9_

* * *

I imagine the situation in Ishval right now is very reminiscent of the mandate system under Britain and France during the inter-war period.

Some Ishvalans, like Black and Thu, want complete independence from Amestris at all costs, and will deal with the consequences only after freedom is achieved.

Others, like Aris, believe that cooperation with Amestris is the only way to modernize Ishval along a secular state structure, and believe that freedom will come some day in the future along with a transformed Ishvalan identity. They believe that it is possible to modernize Ishval while retaining the core elements of Ishvalan culture.

Some, like Scar, are conflicted between the desire to modernize and the obligation to protect key aspects of traditional Ishvalan identity such as religion and social structure. Their livelihood relies on the traditional way, and secularizing and modernizing changes threaten their positions.

On the other side, Amestrians such as Grumman see Ishval as an investment and a part of the Amestris state complex. They are in a tenuous situation whereby they will not tolerate resistance or revolt, and yet they cannot afford to suppress one should it occur. To benefit from Ishval, they must find a way to satisfy and placate the Ishvalan peoples while maintaining a tight grip on the state's administration, domestic, and foreign affairs.

Other Amestrians such as Mustang believe it is possible to modernize Ishval and win its loyalty even after giving it independence. They believe in a mutual relationship between Amestris and Ishval as equals, and are motivated to pursue the most moral path by the memory of the Ishvalan civil war.

Where do Kimblee, Miles, and Kaysi stand? What will Roy do? What about the Ouroboros? I recognize this chapter was very exposition and plot heavy. Next chapter will see more character development and interaction.

See you in the next chapter. ;)


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